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Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months
- upen946 6y agoOpen Startups data with revenue, launch date & social media follower count. Probably can find some pattern? Or some suggested ideas to replicate success? Or find a niche?
- tmpz22 6y agoYou'd need a lot of controls. See a startup with 50k MRR after 12 months and 10m followers? Those 10m followers must have really helped! Oh wait that company actually raised 10m and spent 2m on advertising...
- upen946 6y agoI hope the data helps someone to pick a nice idea to work on. Agreed, lots of controls needed though.
- corobo 6y agoDon't forget to check the reverse of your findings with failed companies Using a bunch of data from startups that succeeded is baking in a survivorship bias
- upen946 6y agoSurvivorship bias is one of the biggest things we can't ignore. In my view, survivorship bias is the main reason , some projects fail as the founders dont see the main reason behind the success for the product they copied. There could be hundred reasons for a product to work for someone at sometime because of something. Probably I should make a list of product that died after making $1K MRR(in 12-24 months)
- an_opabinia 6y agoWithout external audits, there's no reason to believe any of the startups on this list are giving real numbers. In addition, third parties like analytics SDKs or payment processors, which in principle have the capability to easily audit usage and financial data, seem to never do this business. Then there are non-primary-data-source firms like SensorTower and AppAnnie. They are always reactive to (not predictive of) "download counts" - they almost certainly take money to rank higher in their charts, or such a mechanism exists through whatever flawed data gathering approach they take. Anyone who can afford to pay AppAnnie and SensorTower is already well capitalized to some extent, and it is definitely effective to arbitrage $1m of cheap fake downloads through AppAnnie into a $10m investment from dumb money. Compare to Steam, which publishes realtime concurrent player counts and sales data that is irrefutably true, with rare exceptions caused by bugs. (1) There are always big surprises in the Steam data, especially when you compare the genres that lead the charts to the genres that giant companies most aggressively market. Such transparency has been instrumental to the continued success of indie game developers on that platform. Steam has the fattest tails in the business, at least in terms of something we can actually validate, so it's still your best bet for information. Despite the information, there is still not a viable venture capital model around Steam games. You'll never see a Y Combinator gaming startup list on Steam, and the ones that do, they'll fail to raise money because all that investors will talk about is "how many users u got?" It's a vicious cycle The problem is lack of simple ideas for analyzing this data, something so simple and straightforward that the kind of people who become Managing Directors can process in a deck. Anyway, a startup is never going to release numbers it can't fudge. (1) https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/aflabl/psa_stop_hyping_up_auto_chess_player_numbers_they/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/aflabl/psa_stop_hypi...
- wgx 6y agoCould you make the source spreadsheet a view-only Google Sheet? I'd rather look at this in a sortable, searchable sheet if possible. :)
- sho 6y agoWow. There's a lot of projects here that must have taken a lot of work - and look really good - but the MRR is just dismal. There's one there that's pretty close to a side project of mine - not even a grand. Somewhat offputting. Does this mean that many of these projects could stand to put a lot more effort into sales? Would that make a reliable difference? Or is it really just this hard? Or a bit of both? I feel like for some of these, giving the best salesperson you know a huge commission, just getting the ball rolling, could make quite a big difference.
- sushshshsh 6y agoIs it not also possible that there simply aren't many people who want to pay for things, but will happily use it for free?
- upen946 6y agoThere are different models. For example tools like social media automation or website builder, in a free plan they display the actual product url. So sometimes, free plan also bring in users and some of them can turn into paid customers.
- upen946 6y agoPeople always say "A bad product still survives with good marketing but a good product can't survive with bad marketing" May be correct that a good salesperson could make a diff. Would love to hear the product that came close to your side project. Interested to know.
- FullyFunctional 6y agoAnd what is MRR? The original link doesn't seem to define it.
- abakker 6y agoMonthly Recurring Revenue - aka subscriptions.
- adamgamble 6y agoMonthly recurring revenue
- upen946 6y agoOops... MRR - Monthly Recurring Revenue (before expenses typically)
- ffpip 6y agoI think it is Monthly Recurring Revenue.
- tiborsaas 6y agoHow is the MRR amount obtained? Are these all open startups?
- upen946 6y agoYes. This is all real data. No false data. All data taken from various sources like their stripe, paddle, baremtrics data. Only thing to note is - this is before expenditure deduction. Its revenue. Not profit. But with most of these typically sass and lean startups, I would say 80%-90% would be profits, may be.
- northpoleescape 6y agoHi, Nice list and good work! I am curious to understand how this data was made available using Stripe, Peddle, Baremetrics. Do these companies make data publicly available or was it something else. Let me know.
- unreal37 6y agoAs someone who loves a good domain name and collects them, your domain name just gave me a small brain aneurysm.
- carnivor 6y agoI've seen a similar website before with IndieHacker or ProductHunt verified revenues (forgot which). Maybe I missed it here but how are these reoccurring revenues verified, and as others mentioned here, are they audited?
- upen946 6y agoAs mentioned in my other comments, Yes. This is all real data. No false data. All data taken from various sources like stripe, paddle, baremetrics data. Only thing to note is - this is before expenditure deduction. Its revenue. Not profit. But with most of these typically sass and lean startups, I would say 80%-90% would be profits, may be.
- carnivor 6y ago>Yes. This is all real data. No false data. All data taken from various sources like stripe, paddle, baremetrics data. I get that, but the owner of the site reiterating the validity does not really verify anything. At least a page on the website that explains the methodology of arriving at these numbers would be better, maybe with some anonymized screenshots even.
- DVassallo 6y agoThe methodology is in the sentence you quoted.
- carnivor 6y agoListing payment processors does not explain methodology. Did the startup owners send screenshots of their revenues from these processors to listt.xyz? Or did listt.xyz reach out to stripe, paddle, baremetrics ask to verify revenue data? If the whole premise of listt.xyz is showcasing financials of private businesses, I wouldn't trust the data integrity so blindly without at least some credible explanation of how those numbers came to be.
- 6y ago
- bkovacev 6y agoIn a sea of startups/products, where everything feels as if it is already created - how does one come up with a product idea? I feel that every problem I try to tackle is not a real problem. It’s a vitamin and not an ibuprofen. The real problems already have a solution - which means that I’d need to spend a few years and a few hundred thousand dollars to just get a chance to maybe make a profitable product.
- callamdelaney 6y agoIf Zuckerberg said that because myspace existed, where would he be?
- upen946 6y agoPerfect example. There couldn't be a better example.
- upen946 6y agoI agree with your vitamin vs painkiller analogy. There are successful products that started catering to a finite set of audience and still making a lot of money. For example, one from my list is ChurchCo making $45K/month just by doing websites for Churches. Can you believe? So, just by picking unique features and niching down the audience, you can still place a safe bet without spending a few years and hundreds of dollars.
- celestialcheese 6y agoAgreed "There’s only two ways I know of to make money: bundling and unbundling." - Barksdale https://hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-succeed-in-business-by-bundling-and-unbundling https://hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-succeed-in-business-by-bundli... ChurchCo is just an unbundling of Squarespace it seems like with a specific niche. I guess we've reached the point where Squarespace is now big enough, with so much configuration options, that it's confusing for people who "Just want a good looking church website". Small fish in a huge market seems like a great strategy.
- 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- segmondy 6y ago$1k MRR is nothing to brag about. Seriously, we need to start aiming much higher. If this was "My 1hr a day side project hitting $1kMRR in 12months", then it's impressive. But I often see these non side projects and I just want to voice that it's absolutely not impressive. If you started a business mowing lawn, cutting hair, you better be way past $1K revenue in 6 months. If you're fully committed to building a startup and 100% vested in it, even $10k a month isn't impressive after 24 months. MY OPINION. If you're that skilled and can't figure out how to make money fast, you really might be better of leetcoding and getting a job at one of the FAANGs or well paying SV companies.
- amelius 6y ago> If you're that skilled and can't figure out how to make money fast, you really might be better of leetcoding and getting a job at one of the FAANGs or well paying SV companies. Unless of course, you prefer to have the freedom to work on whatever you want to work on.
- upen946 6y agoI was just quoting the same in another comment where Daniel Vassallo quit his high paying job.
- TuringNYC 6y ago>> If you started a business mowing lawn, cutting hair, you better be way past $1K revenue in 6 months. Depends. If you are doing the mowing, cutting then i'd agree -- because it isnt a "product/platform/marketplace business" as much as a service, so you should earn the market rate of the service, less your independence discount. If you are not doing the mowing, cutting but instead have a scalable business that could grow beyond the 24hrs you can work yourself, then you may not have made $1k in 6mo because you're investing for growth. Since the article is about MRR, i'm assuming they are talking about the second category, which is true MRR.
- upen946 6y agoAgree. Yes, I am talking about a true MRR. It always makes happy to get a MRR even if its a small amount when you are just starting up.
- wenbin 6y agoThis is an awesome list! $1k MRR may not sound impressive in Silicon Valley / New York etc., but 1) it's actually pretty good in other places in the world - the world is just too big, too diverse; 2) not many people have the skill to make $1k MRR without working for an established companies, and not many people have the time / energy to do side hustles or have guts to quit their job to find time to do so. $1k MRR is a milestone. You can grow it to $2k, $5k, $10k down the road. Your efforts can directly affect the financial outcome.
- upen946 6y agoThankyou. Exactly. This is for all those people who would love to have their first sweet spot of achieving $1K MRR to start with. For Silicon Valley/New York, ofcourse $1K MRR is nothing. But we have lot examples who went on nomad life style travelling countries and working from places with cheaper cost of living and in those case $1K MRR is still big.
- stanislavb 6y agoNice list, mate! As the founder of SaaSHub, I'd suggest adding it to the list, too. The current MRR is ~$2.4k, and it's been about a bit more than a year since I quit my job and started working full-time on it. https://www.saashub.com/open https://www.saashub.com/open
- blackrock 6y agoWhere does most of your revenue come from? Listing fees? Or ads?
- Grustaf 6y agoIt IS a milestone, but 1k a month is not a meaningful amount in any rich country. Remember, it's revenue for your company, not your net salary. Not even your gross salary.
- reader_mode 6y agoDepends on how much time you have to spend to make it work - if it's a full time thing 1k MRR is >7$/hour if you spend 160 hours a month on it - if you can code anywhere in the world that's below lowest tier remote coding gigs, triple that and you approach low end remote gigs.
- 55555 6y agoIf it takes you 24 months to hit 1k MRR you are working on the wrong thing. Just stop and move onto a better opportunity.
- upen946 6y agoNot really. Most people trying to reach $1K MRR in 24 months might have been already working in a day job. So, infact, apart from their day job, this $1K MRR is an add-on if not life changing.
- halfmatthalfcat 6y agoMy startup has 0 MRR and I’ve been working on it for 7 years. What should I do?
- d33lio 6y agoThank you! This list is everything I enjoyed about Indie Hackers before it was inundated with scammers and spam.
- upen946 6y agoThankyou.
- thursday0987 6y agomy investment property, a residential duplex in the midwest, has a better MRR than most of these. total cost? a month of my time looking at houses and negotiating, which i enjoyed, and about 45k downpayment. plus i get all the tax writeoffs that property ownership brings. most of these "startups" seem like more work than they are worth.
- bgdkbtv 6y agoYou got downvoted because this is a tech oriented audience, but you are sadly correct.
- shard 6y agoYou bring up a few good points with your post. First is that expenses are crucial in helping to determine how the company is doing. You might have mortgage and maintenance expenses that put you in the red, despite your greater than $1k MRR. Same with the startups in the list. Second, the growth potential: your real estate business has a fairly well understood long term revenue growth profile, assuming it is located in a mature economy, with obvious caveats of neighborhood changes in popularity, infrastructure, beneficial and detrimental facilities, while a startup at $1k/MRR can be already capped in growth or have an unknown growth potential, depending on the type of business and the market it is in.
- thursday0987 6y agooh, no. i actually net 1150 in profit each month, including all expenses, capex, and savings for emergencies.
- tima101 6y agoThe Church Co - $199/month for ultimate package. You can probably charge churches more since there is lack of technical knowledge. Are founders and employees of Church Co religious or not? Is there any moral barrier in helping churches to collect donations?
- blackrock 6y agoNice list. This is for all the dreamers. Once you get your site up to $1k MRR, then the dream is in sight. It’s got to start somewhere.