Adrian Balcan didn’t set out to build a SaaS company. But one unexpected partnership changed everything — and what came next, no one saw coming. Today, global brands trust FeedCheck with some of their most valuable data.

Why it matters: → The best business ideas are hiding in plain sight

Worth your time if: → You’re still looking for your product-market fit moment

The thing to steal: → Sometimes your first customer teaches you more than your business plan ever will

Before we dive in — who are you, and what are you building?

Hello, I am Adrian Balcan the founder of FeedCheck.

https://feedcheck.co

) a company that helps consumer brands to manage their customer reviews. I am from Pitesti (a small town in Romania) and I am 33 years old now.

FeedCheck, the company that I founded, helps global brands like Nestle, Fujitsu, and other well-established companies to listen, analyze, and improve their products based on customer feedback.

You can find the entire story here:
https://medium.com/feedcheck/how-we-build-an-app-that-manages-reviews-for-popular-consumer-brands-989cd0b8c65b

What was the moment that made you think 'this is the business I need to build'?

I started a data mining business right after I graduated from the university. My marketing teacher told me that there is a new thing called data mining and companies use it to find customer insights. That sounds super interesting to me. I also, chose data mining because in high school I worked at a web design agency and some customer interactions were unpleasant discussions about subjective things like colors and so on.

In the beginning, the cash flow was not so great, and were looking to find a product opportunity. I started to collaborate with a smartwatch company (later acquired by Fitbit which was also acquired by Google). At that moment we were providing real-time data like weather forecasts, currency exchange rates, and other information to put on the watch.

They discovered the need to manage customer reviews in a lot of online stores. We started to develop the FeedCheck product. FeedCheck monitors online stores (like Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc.) to search for customer feedback in the form of product reviews. After we bring all reviews to our platform we make a lot of analytics over them.

Take us back to the very beginning — how did you land your first customers?

We started with content marketing. We tried to develop some analytics for famous brands and published this on our website. We started to make comparisons between multiple products in different categories (e.g. phones, headphones, smartwatches) based on customer reviews.

We listed FeedCheck in a lot of directories in order to get some SEO advantage. We also created some social media content. We talked with a lot of people and we tried to obtain meetings with representatives of relevant consumer brands locally. Actually, we tried to do everything that was possible but now, is hard to tell which tactic was the best.

After 11 months of development, a small UK company contacted us. They were willing to pay $5 per month. They were our first customers. The challenge was to split this $5 at 3 (the team size).

How are you growing the business today? What does your marketing actually look like?

We have content creation initiatives. At the beginning of the year, we started "Experts in Spotlight" where we conducted interviews with marketing professionals and we published these interviews on our blog. The purpose was to get more attention from marketing experts.

Let's talk money — how does FeedCheck make it?

In terms of business model, we offer a subscription-based platform (SaaS) to consumer brands and business services (e.g. hotels, restaurants, etc.).

Our customers need continuous data and this is why this monetization option is the best.

Numbers time — what's the business doing today, and what does it cost to run it?

We started about 8 years ago (in 2016) and at this moment we are at $17K MRR. This year we predict a 20% growth.

Last one — where can people find you and follow your work?

I am available on LinkedIn at the following URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianbalcan/

Got an interesting business to share? Let us know here!

Mark Vassilevskiy followed the classic indie playbook — learn a skill, freelance, build an agency. But what changed everything wasn’t a big investment or a viral moment. It was a trip to Dubai, a content strategy U-turn, and a simple framework called the 4-Factor Analysis. Today, Skale Solutions pulls $30k MRR with lean costs and a client model built for retention.

Why it matters: → Content strategy beats portfolio flexing — every time

Worth your time if: → You run or want to run a service business

The thing to steal: → Give away the secrets, sell the implementation

Hey Mark! Tell us a bit about yourself and what you're building

Well it's just the usual model of any beginner entrepreneur. Learn a new skill - start freelancing - open an agency, and start hiring - then mostly switch to infobusiness after hitting some impressive numbers ($200k MRR and beyond) I was on a Dubai trip at the time and came up with the naming and the idea behind my new agency. Made a new website within 1 week, a new logo within a couple of hours, and changed my content strategy completely.

That’s quite a shift — what did building the business actually look like in the early days?

Instead of doing some designer-focused content, I started talking about the client’s problems and made a whole database that helped me to do it. It’s called 4-Factor-Analysis (Frustration, Aspiration, Fears, Quick Win). I started doing more breakdowns of the best solutions in our sphere, shared all of my experience and also did some public work for free (such as redesigning a website of a huge brand and telling about their flaws).

As Alex Hormozi always says, “Give away the secrets, sell the implementation”. And that’s exactly what helped me to grow. Instead of doing some cool UI cards that get hundreds of thousands of views, it’s better to write a thread on how to get higher conversions even if it’ll get 10 times less views.

How did you get your first clients through the door?

I’ve been growing just on X alone and nothing else. Right now, I’m also working on my LinkedIn account and Instagram as well Here’s the link: https://x.com/MarkKnd.

And how are you bringing in new clients today — same approach or has it evolved?

So right now we just offer a few bundle package for different kinds of services and work 50/50 with the clients. Average LTV is around $7k and we get around 2 more clients a month, and try to sign as much of them on retainer basis so it’ll be beneficial both for us and for them

How does the business model work — how do you make money?

Average MRR right now is $30k, and the cost is around $5-7k, considering all the in-house and freelance expenses

Let’s talk numbers. What is the business currently making?

Average MRR right now is $30k, and the cost is around $5-7k, considering all the in-house and freelance expenses

Last one — where can people find you and follow your work?

Hope my story will inspire you! If you need a website, you know who to call ;) Website:

https://skale.solutions/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/MarkKnd
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markknd/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markvassilevskiy/

Got an interesting business to share? Let us know here!

What you’ll learn:
→ How staying independent and focusing on individuals drives growth

Who should read:
→ Founders, indie makers, or anyone building a SaaS or productivity tool

Can you tell us a bit about your role and what you’re currently working on?

I'm the Head of Growth at Reflect, a minimalist note-taking app that helps you think better. You can think of it like Apple Notes but with powerful features built in, like the ability to chat with your notes using AI. I also run a content marketing agency called Startup Cookie that uses AI tools and workflows instead of people.

How did the product get started, and what core problem was it designed to solve?

Reflect was mostly built by Alex MacCaw, who also founded Clearbit. Now we have 3 engineers and myself on the team. Alex saw a huge problem with note taking apps. They start off an excellent product and then take on outside investor funding. Because investors require a massive return, they pressure the note taking app into scaling efforts that hurt the product. Collaboration is a great example of this. Once you focus a productivity tool on teams, it becomes substantially worse for the individual. Reflex primary goal is to help you think better. We believe thing profitable and self-funded allows us to make the best possible note taking tool that aligns with this.

Why was staying independent such an important decision from the beginning?

The first reflect customers came from Alex's Twitter account. At the time he probably had about 30,000 followers. He shared to process mission and vision behind the product along with the first version that people could sign up and pay for. This is what got Reflect its initial under customers and not much additional promotion was needed in the early days.

What does growth look like today, and how do people usually discover the product?

Our biggest marketing channel has always been word of mouth. Just people telling their friends and family about us organically. Our new feature and product launches also feed into this. We also get a handful of customers through various content efforts.

How is the product monetized today?

Our business model is quite simple. We just have one annual plan that's $120 a year. Our philosophy is to give people enough time to try all the product as they need to before they decide if they want to purchase. But once we do ask them, we ask for a commitment. People oftentimes get caught tire kicking productivity tools and they spend more time and effort switching tools than they do actually taking notes.

Can you share some actual numbers about revenue?

We don't share exact revenue numbers, but we are now profitable!

How can we know more about you?

reflect.app

Have an interesting business story to share? We’d love to hear about it.

Why it matters:
→ Demand validation before code + product-led growth

Worth your time if:
→ You’re building (or planning) a SaaS

Hello! Can you briefly introduce yourself and explain what you’re building?

MHey all! I'm Mike, a serial SaaS entrepreneur and currently the founder of Upvoty (upvoty.com) & Pixally (pixal.ly) and also the creator of the Zero to SaaS course (zerotosaascourse.com) in which I teach my 10+ years of experience building SaaS products. On top of that, I'm also the founder and host of the Zero to 7 Club Community (zeroto7club.com/community) and podcast show (youtube.com/@zeroto7club).

So yeah, on a day-to-day, busy with building products and the community. When I'm not doing any of that, you can find me running in the woods, playing squash, or traveling. I love working remotely.

How did your project get started?

My story begins when dropping out of school at the age of 19. School just wasn’t for me. I was too busy scaling my internet business during classes, lol.

At the age of 16, I started my first e-commerce store selling printed t-shirts. To scale the business, I needed to learn SEO.

When successfully scaling the store nationally, other businesses started asking me to help them with their SEO.

This was the kickstart of my SEO agency.

I scaled that one to over $200,000/year with 3 employees.

But I wasn’t really fulfilled and I wanted to build my own product.

That’s when I started working on my first SaaS, a home improvement platform where we generated leads for contractors who paid us a monthly subscription fee + commissions on every lead. I managed to scale that one to over $1m in annual revenue and exited it for a life-changing amount.

During the last months of running that platform, I already started working on my next SaaS called Upvoty, which is a user feedback tool. This came from my own need to collect and manage user feedback of the home improvement platform more efficiently.

After doing research, I couldn’t find software that did what I needed it to do and thus I spotted the opportunity to build one my own.

How did you get your first customers and and validated early demand?

Before we wrote a single line of code, I quickly ramped up a landing page with an explainer video and a signup form. I shared the page with my audience on Twitter (twitter.com/mikestrives), Instagram (instagram.com/mikestrives), and YouTube (youtube.com/@mikestrives) and asked people to share and sign up if they were interested in such a product.

Besides that, I launched the idea on launch platforms such as Betalist, IndieHackers, and within Facebook groups.

Within a couple of weeks, we had 100s of sign-ups, and that’s when I realized I was on to something.

I started building the first version of the product, and we worked closely with beta users to build the platform.

During the private beta, we listened carefully to the problems of our users and solved those by building features.

By doing so, a couple of users were so keen on using the product to its full potential they already wanted to start paying a subscription.

That’s when we acquired the first paying customers.

Since launch, what channels have driven the most consistent growth?

We officially launched the product on Product Hunt and to the people who signed up for the waiting list.

Within 3 months, we acquired the first $1,000 in MRR.

Since the launch, we have invested highly in content marketing by researching our potential audience’s biggest issues and questions and creating content for them.

Over time, we grew our Domain Authority to over 80, and we converted many monthly visitors into customers.

One of our most converting channels, however, is our own product.

And by that, I don’t mean word of mouth, actually.

It’s the little referral in our product that does the magic.

Our users are sharing their own Upvoty boards with their users and customers, and in that board, there’s a little mention ‘by Upvoty’ which generates a lot of clicks and new sign-ups.

The thing is, users of our customers so much like the feedback portal they’re using, they want to use it for their own products as well.

And thus, they click through and sign up.

*note: probably good thing to embed this video outlining my complete startegy?

How is the product monetized today?

We charge a monthly or annual subscription to our customers. Since 6 months, we've been promoting the annual subscription with a 10% is discount, and we've seen great success in terms of customer LTV and trial-to-paid conversion rates. This is something I highly recommend experimenting with.

Can you share some actual numbers about revenue?

For my SaaS, Upvoty, we’re currently at $45,000 in MRR. The Zero to SaaS course (zerotosaascourse.com) is doing around $5/month, the Zero to 7 Community and Podcast (zeroto7club.com) around $1k/month, and my personal brand (sponsorships) around $1k, and I have some minor income streams like affiliate marketing, etc.

So in total, I’m making around $55,000/month now.

How can we know more about you?

• twitter.com/mikestrives

• instagram.com/mikestrives

• youtube.com/@mikestrives

Got an interesting business to share? Let us know here!

My name is Andris Reinman. I live in Tallinn, Estonia, and I’m 42.

I’ve been in web development since the Internet Explorer 4 days.

My product is EmailEngine, a self-hosted app that exposes an API for mailbox access. Most customers are SaaS and AI companies that need to reach their users’ mailboxes without wrangling half a dozen email protocols.

EmailEngine is a tool to access emails on email servers over a simple to use REST interface. Handling native email protocols like IMAP, SMTP, and MIME directly is difficult. These protocols have evolved over many decades into very complex systems and look nothing like the HTTP protocols we are mostly used to.

How was the business started?

EmailEngine began in early 2020 as an open-source project called IMAP API.

I’d built a similar system at my previous job, and years later there still wasn’t a solid solution, so I scratched the itch myself.

The first version was tiny, just an API layer with background sync, but the core idea hasn’t changed. I soon noticed the users were almost all companies with long feature wish-lists.

Giving that away for free didn’t make sense, so after a major UI rewrite and a stack of new features I relaunched as EmailEngine, added license keys, and started charging.

From first commit to first paid invoice took about 18 months, and apart from my own time the cash spend was basically zero.

What are some of your marketing strategies?

I initially ran EmailEngine as a free open source project, mainly to gain some traction. I managed to get 3 test customers willing to pay for better license terms than the default open source one, but it took a long time.

The first revenue, about $2,000 in month one, came from companies already running the free IMAP API who wanted the new EmailEngine features.

Because plans were yearly, things quieted down right after launch, so the next months brought in just $0-$500.

To keep leads coming, I did the following:

• Put up a simple homepage next to the GitHub repo and added a Mailchimp signup form.

• Kept the code “source-available” so people can audit it, but require a paid license to run it.

• Linked to EmailEngine from the READMEs and sites of my other projects. Nodemailer.com (the homepage for an open source email sending library I've maintained for the past 15 years) alone (~50 k visits/month) sends ~3 000 visitors to EmailEngine; even with a low conversion rate, it’s releavnt traffic.

These days, I’m focusing on mostly references from my other open-source projects plus growing organic traffic from the expanded docs on the EmailEngine site. No new channels yet.

How does the business make money?

A flat $995 per year. Early adopters keep their lower legacy price. One license covers unlimited EmailEngine instances and mailboxes; the bottleneck is the customer’s own hardware, not the license. No changes planned.

EmailEngine pulls in ~$130,000 ARR. Fixed monthly costs are about $5 k: my salary plus taxes, hosting, license-key server, accountant, and a coworking desk. The rest is profit that I take as dividends when it makes sense.

I spent around roughly 20 – 30 hours a week on the business, split between support, bug fixes, and new features.

Where can we go to learn more?

• GitHub

• EmailEngine

Got an interesting business to share? Let us know here!

What is the business and who’s behind it?

When Karen Constable launched The Rotten Apple, she had one mission: cut through the noise of the food industry and give busy professionals exactly what they needed—no fluff, no ads, and definitely no filler.

Just three years later, that bold idea turned into a paid newsletter with over $21,000 in annual revenue, a Substack Bestseller badge, and a fiercely loyal readership. All from a list of just 4,000 subscribers.

With decades of experience in food safety, quality assurance, and product development across multiple sectors, she’s a seasoned food industry expert who knows her stuff. But what makes her stand out isn’t just her knowledge—it’s how she shares it.

The Rotten Apple, hosted on Substack, is Karen’s weekly roundup of curated food and agriculture news. She scours hundreds of articles, reports, forums, and social media posts each week to deliver short, sharp, insight-packed emails that are as useful as they are digestible.

Her style? No fluff. No filler. No promotions. Just what matters—straight from a pro who’s been on the frontlines of food integrity for decades.

How was the business started?

Back in 2021, Karen was looking for a new kind of income—something scalable that didn’t require trading time for money.

Consulting, while rewarding, always tied her income to her hours. A newsletter, on the other hand, could scale infinitely without increasing her workload.

“I absolutely love the scalability of it,” she shares in this interview. “When I get more subscribers, I get more money but don’t need to do more work.”

Armed with her industry expertise, Karen launched The Rotten Apple on Substack. In the beginning, she had no audience. No email list. No fanfare.

Just a clear promise: expert-curated food safety news, every week, with zero ads.

The early months were slow—800 subscribers after six months. But rather than panic or pivot, she stayed consistent. She published regularly, kept her promises, and built trust, brick by brick.

That patience paid off.

What are some of the marketing strategies used?

Karen’s playbook wasn’t complicated—it was smart.

She doubled down on what worked and ruthlessly cut what didn’t.

Early on, she experimented with multiple platforms. But after six months, she ditched the channels that weren’t converting.

The winners? LinkedIn and her SEO-optimized website.

• On her website, a pop-up invites visitors to subscribe, with a simple, benefit-driven call to action.

• On LinkedIn, she shares her expertise, builds relationships, and invites people to check out her newsletter. “LinkedIn groups are great too,” she says.

And she never stopped publishing high-quality content.

“Consistent publishing. Quality content. Keeping promises. That’s been the strategy since day one,” Karen says.

She also emphasizes the importance of pacing. “Burnout is a huge risk when you’re a solo creator. I tell new Substackers to go at a speed that feels manageable. Add new growth tactics only when you’re ready.”

How does the business make money?

The Rotten Apple is a pure-play paid newsletter.

Karen introduced paid subscriptions six months in—at 800 subscribers.

Now, with 3,000 subscribers and over 200 paying members, she’s hitting a 6% conversion rate, which is higher than most newsletters on Substack.

Subscribers pay $10/month for access to exclusive content like:

• Food fraud incident reports

• Industry indexes and templates

• Monthly supplements and deep dives

• Recordings of training events

• An archive of past issues in e-book format

But interestingly, she notes that many subscribers pay not just for the content—but out of appreciation. “Some people really need those resources. But others pay mainly to support me. And that’s incredibly meaningful.”

She also keeps The Rotten Apple 100% ad-free by design. It’s a key differentiator. “My competitors are packed with ads. I wanted my readers to know that everything I share is for their benefit—not a sponsor’s. That authenticity builds trust.”

Where can we go to learn more?

• The Rotten Apple

• LinkedIn

Get featured?

Let us know here what interesting business you’re running now and we will get in touch!

Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

I'm Caspar, the founder of Keep The Score.

I'm a 46-year old jack-of-all-trades from Germany. My background is in product management, but I've always been drawn to the world of web development.

In 2016, I launched Keep The Score as a side project to develop my coding skills. It was one of many different products I launched over the years, but I never expected anything to turn into a full-time job.

In March 2021, I made the decision to quit my job and focus on growing Keep The Score full-time.

Fast forward to today, and Keep The Score has grown into a full-fledged business that enables users to create customizable scoreboards and leaderboards for various applications, from live streaming to sports events and classroom activities.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

It was 2016, and I was on a mission to teach myself web development.

I was looking for something really simple to build. The lightbulb moment came when I walked past a whiteboard with names and scores scribbled on it: why not create an online scoreboard that anyone could access and update from anywhere?

The product would be so simple that it would not even require a login. It took me about 3 months to make, working evenings. I was not working flat out, because it was just a fun learning project.

There is a working copy of the first version available here:

I made a post about it to Reddit and that's when growth started. But it was very very slow for the first few years.

At some point I decided to add a Stripe checkout and suddenly I was making 500 USD a month.

That's when I knew I had a working business and decided to quit my job and go all-in.

How did you get your first initial customers?

From day one, I relied on SEO and content marketing.

I never did any other kind of marketing (bar some failed experiments). Content marketing is often under appreciated -- by tiny and large companies alike. But it is an extremely effective tool. I suspect that most people give up too early or are put off by the effort. But trust me: it works and it is 100% worth it.

Content marketing is often under appreciated -- by tiny and large companies alike. But it is an extremely effective tool. I suspect that most people give up too early or are put off by the effort. But trust me: it works and it is 100% worth it.

Content marketing is often under appreciated -- by tiny and large companies alike. But it is an extremely effective tool.

I grew my initial paying customer base purely through SEO and content marketing. I wrote weekly blog posts answering specific problems, like "How to create a leaderboard using Google Sheets." The content focused on being genuinely helpful, with only brief mentions of my product.

I suspect that most people give up too early or are put off by the effort. But trust me: it works and it is 100% worth it.

I learned SEO by watching videos and reading posts on the topic. There are thousands of different resources—don’t overthink it. I just started and didn’t stop.

Since launch, what are your marketing strategies or channels to get new customers?

I still do content marketing. I manage to write around 1 post per week.

Recently I have started working with a content agency. They write 4 articles a month for 2,500 USD. I will continue to use content marketing.

A very important lesson I learned is: work out what works and then stick with it.

I believe a lot of founders think they need to start with Facebook or Google ads to be successful.

This is not true. In fact, building successful ad channels is very hard (and very expensive).

I avoided traditional marketing methods - no paid ads or social media campaigns. Instead, I concentrated on ranking well in Google searches for terms like "online scoreboard." When people found my helpful content, they naturally explored the product.

The strategy worked because I kept the barrier to entry low - users could try the product without creating an account, and then upgrade to the paid tier if they found it valuable.

Here’s an interesting story from my journey:

I noticed a competitor consistently outranking me in search results, so I decided to investigate using Ahrefs. This led to a surprising discovery—they were running a black-hat SEO operation, injecting hidden links across thousands of websites. Once I exposed this, Google penalized them, and I took the top spot.

That experience really showed me the power of SEO in my product category.

How does your business make money?

I make money in 3 ways:

1. One-off payments: Users can unlock additional features and customization options for their scoreboards and leaderboards by making a one-time payment. This allows them to access premium functionality without committing to a recurring subscription.

2. Subscription revenue: For users who require ongoing access to the premium features, I offer a subscription model. Unfortunately I have very high churn, and this is a problem I am currently working on.

3. Advertising revenue: I've recently introduced advertising on the platform, which generates revenue based on the number of impressions and clicks. While this is currently a smaller portion of my overall income, it has the potential to scale as our user base grows.

Gross revenue for the business is hovering around $16,000 USD per month.

I work on the project full time. I have a wife and 2 kids (7 and 9) which keeps me from working flat out. This is a good thing! It means I stay sane.

I spend most of my time on:

• developing new features (40%)

• SEO and content (30%)

• Customer support (10%)

• Coordinating my 3 freelancers (20%)

Where can we go to learn more about you and your business?

Here is the product: https://keepthescore.com

I am trying to cut down on Twitter / X and share most of my updates on LinkedIn.

Please follow me there!

Hello, my name is Abhishek Kumar, and I am the founder of Deep Research.

We are a boutique market research agency that helps companies gather customer insights and use them to guide their product and growth strategy.

Our clients are early-stage startups in the idea validation phase or businesses that have paying customers and are looking for their next growth opportunities.

Depending on the needs of our clients, we spend 4-8 weeks speaking to their customers and helping them figure out their ideal buyer personas, the messaging that resonates with their buyer personas that can be used end to end from their website to their email marketing campaigns, how to position themselves in the market against competitors, feature recommendations based on the most lucrative problems, and marketing recommendations that their buyers would respond to.

I'm originally from India but spend most of the year in the UK.

How was the business started?

I've always had side gigs.

I’ve dropshipped t-shirts from China to the USA, built and sold a few pages on Instagram, helped businesses repurpose content, helped an entrepreneur write an ebook (which never came out), written code, and ran customer research. I also wrote a newsletter and a podcast for over a year when I had a full-time job.

Over time, I realized that I enjoyed research more than anything. It was also the best part about podcasting. I loved creating a hit list of dream guests, stalking them on social media for weeks, and then dropping them emails to invite them to the podcast.

I also loved reading about their background and asking questions they'd not been asked before. Felt like a win. What I hated was all the post-interview stuff - editing and posting.

So last year I started to clean my plate and kill side projects that I no longer enjoyed or were making little to no money. I could come back to them later but now I needed something full-time that would help me quit my day job.

So I’m removing tasks off my plate, increasingly thinking of research, and one fine night I see a post for a customer interview gig. One thing led to another and I started working with Sophia at Ignore No More agency. They’re still a client.

Working with her, I realized there’s a huge market for research for startups - not a billion-dollar market - but enough for me to start an agency of my own. It still took a full year for me to quit my job, but I eventually did it.

At the time I had 0 clients outside of Ignore No More, but they were a constant source of revenue. I spent about $400 creating the first version of the product - which was a landing page and an example report I would deliver to my potential clients. I started with the website.

A friend suggested the Umso website builder. They had a good agency template. Spent a week playing with it and created a basic website. The example report was made on Notion.

How did you get your first initial customers?

For sales, we went all in on communities.

Previously I had worked with a creator on creator-led businesses and had seen the power of well-curated paid communities. Back in 2020, I had joined On Deck’s Podcasting Fellowship. A lot of fellow members were business owners getting into podcasting.

When I shared my story of building the TikTok page, I got 2 clients the same week.

I wasn't even selling a service. They reached out to me and convinced me to work for them. Both were short-term gigs but paid for my fellowship. In good communities, you’ll make money even without selling.

Our first customer outside of Sophia came from the Trends community by Dru Riley. Since then we’ve had customers from MicroConf, Indie Worldwide, Ramen Club, and Lenny’s Newsletter.

We continue to invest a lot of time in these communities and they have been our biggest sales channels. There was never a big launch. I just started spending a lot of time in communities:

Answering questions on user research and connecting with other founders. Some communities have daily standups and weekly masterminds. I’d join all calls, letting people know what I do.

After about a month of doing that, we started to see inbound interest. I like to say that Deep Research gets all of its clients through content. It’s just that we create that content for one person or a very small group - at a time.

Since launch, what are your marketing strategies or channels to get new customers?

We still get almost all of our customers from communities. Some through cold pitches to founders we've known for a while and see an opportunity to work together.

I hop on 4-5 founder coffee chats every single week. I’m constantly watching founders working on interesting ideas and firing off lots of cold emails.

Here are all the flows through which I’ve networked with people:

• Read interesting intros in communities and DM/Email founders -

• Read a Twitter thread and DM the writer -

• Read articles on Business Insider, Inc. and and email founders -

• Read about small businesses through newsletters and email their founders

In total, I wrote an email or sent a DM to 400+ founders this year alone, hopped on 50+ calls, and have made many friends.

I’m horrible at following up, which I’m working on but it’s not something I’m proud of now.

But in short, that’s how I get clients. I’m always skeptical that this strategy will fall on its face someday but it has worked till now.

In the past months, we've had calls with prospects that have come to us through content (interviews in online publications). But it's still too early to put a number to them.

How does the business make money?

We charge our clients on a per-project basis - $4000-$10,000 depending on the client's needs:

I spend about 40 hours per week on the business. Most of it is networking with founders and day-to-day client work.

If I had to break it down, it would be something like:

• 2 hours per day in communities and reading relevant news pieces -

• 3 hours a day in research

• 2 hours per day on networking calls

• 1 hour per day on Business-related tasks - delegation, invoicing, paperwork

The business is currently making around $15,000 MRR, and the cost of running it is around $8,000 per month.

Where can we go to learn more?

You can find me at the following links:

• Website

• Linkedin

• Founder Coffee Chat - this is the best way to connect.

I keep it casual and love learning from other businesses.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out!

Got an interesting business to share? Let us know here!

Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

Hi, I’m Momcilo Popov, a creative developer turned agency founder, DevTool co-founder, and serial side project maker.

I’m originally from Novi Sad, Serbia, and I’ve been in the tech industry for 15 years, with the last 8 focused on leading teams and developing innovative products.

One of my current businesses is VideoToFlip.com, an online service that turns videos into physical flipbooks.

It's actually a family business that me and my wife run together.

We help people capture life’s special moments in a creative and fun way, making them perfect as gifts for weddings, birthdays, and family events.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

The idea for VideoToFlip actually started back in 2016, when my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I made a flipbook as a gift for a friend.

The process of creating it was fun, and the final product turned out quite nice. That’s when we first thought this could become a business someday.

It wasn’t until 2018 that we launched the first version of the product under a different name.

In those early days, we experimented with printing methods and simple prototypes while keeping costs minimal - we outsorced printing, cutting and binding. The initial investment was around $100.

Most of it went into building the first batch of flipbooks, to have some visuals for the website. The positive reactions we received during those early trials gave us the motivation to keep building.

How did you get your first initial customers?

We launched the initial version of Video to Flipbook under a different name in December 2018 on Product Hunt as a fun side project.

The initial spike in customers from that launch gave us steady orders over the years, primarily through word-of-mouth and some inevitable organic SEO. Friends, family, and satisfied customers played a key role in spreading the word.

After rebranding in December 2024, we fully committed to producing high-quality, handcrafted flipbooks.

Initially, we worked with local print shops but faced issues like delays, inconsistent quality, and slow turnaround times.

To solve this, we invested in professional machines and spent months mastering every step of the process, including printing, binding, and production.

Today, we handle everything in-house, giving us complete control over the quality. Each flipbook is made with precision and care, ensuring it delivers joy and lasting memories to every customer.

Since launch, what are your marketing strategies or channels to get new customers?

Our main marketing strategy revolves around content marketing, gift guides, and Pinterest SEO.

Pinterest is an ideal platform for showcasing visual, sentimental products like ours. We create boards on wedding gifts, birthday ideas, and personalized presents, driving steady traffic to the site.

Additionally, we’ve worked on blog posts optimized for SEO - especially those targeting occasions like weddings, family reunions, or anniversary gifts.

As of now, we’re exploring niche communities, including families of incarcerated individuals who are looking for creative ways to send memories.

This market came to our attention after receiving an inspiring customer story. Also, trying out paid ads.

How does your business make money?

We monetize through product sales.

Each custom flipbook costs $25 for the standard version and $28 for premium versions with custom covers.

We also plan to introduce bulk order pricing for events and collaborations with businesses, such as wedding photographers and event organizers. So far we have been handling those inquires manually.

We currently make around $4,000 - $6,000 per month in revenue, depending on the season. The costs are primarily tied to printing, shipping, and minimal marketing expenses, which average around $2k per month. During major holidays like Valentine’s Day or Christmas, our sales spike significantly.

We spend around 10-15 hours per week each on VideoToFlip. The tasks include making flipbooks, working on SEO, and managing marketing campaigns.

Where can we go to learn more about you and your business?

You can learn more about VideoToFlip at our official website, or reach out to me directly on LinkedIn for any questions or collaborations.

Thank you for reading!

Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

My name is Ritesh Verma, and I am a 24 year old entrepreneur, creator, and software engineer.

I am from Maryland and I build AI/web agents for individuals, small businesses, and enterprises.

I have over 100,000 subscribers on Youtube across two channels and I have been featured on Business Insider for my work in agentic development.

I am actively growing a web-agent called InstaDM, that does mass instagram outreach.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

I was able to get clients to sell my AI/web agents to through Instagram outreach - sending 150 direct messages a day.

This was a very manual process so I decided there has to be a way to automate instagram outreach at scale. I cannot keep spending hours a day finding leads, and then mass messaging them. All the "auotmated outreach" solutions out there were not really automated.

So I used my background in agentic development to build my own Instagram outreach tool - InstaDM.

The first version wasn’t great. Messaging would sometimes fail, and our analytics were off. I had built the mass Instagram messaging script to avoid detection, which worked, but the overall software; installation, operation, and maintenance, was pretty rough.

I spent about $1,000 since it was built by myself and some buddies that I paid. I was able to make the money back very quickly due to the success of the tool.

What are some of your initial marketing strategies?

I got my first initial customers through my Youtube channel.

I made a Youtube video on the tool and then also sent that video across various discords, Reddits, and dm's to agency owners with personal brands. In other words, I leveraged social media heavily.

After the first 5-6 customers, I was able to double the users through word of mouth. The users loved it so much it started creating this word-of-mouth spread that helped increase our user base substantially. This also gave us the confidence that our product is fire.

Another interesting thing was that our website was ranking pretty high on Google even though we did not invest too much in SEO.

It may be all the backlinks being created by others sharing the tool in other communities. It's pretty cool.

How are you attracting customers now?

I am focused on using Reddit heavily as well as content marketing.

I started an Instagram for InstaDM to start posting reels on the tool in action. I have also partnered with agency Youtubers who are using the tool and showing it off to their followers.

One of the most notable acquisition methods has been word of mouth. Users are loving the tool and telling all their friends about it which is helping sales a lot.

How does your business make money?

We currently run monthly subscriptions.

We charge a range of $70-$160 depending on if you are on a monthly plan or have subscribed to a yearly plan from which you get 2 months free.

We also have begun a done-for-you service for agencies doing $10k+ a month where we handle the entire Instagram outreach process which involves optimizing IG accounts, A/B testing, mass messaging, appointment setting, etc.

For that we charge upwards of $2,000/mo.

As of right now, the business is earning $6,000 MRR across InstaDM and two other white-labeled version we have of the software.

I spend about 5 hours a week on this. It has been pretty autopilot for the last couple of months. I am looking to up hours to 10 a week so I can grow it faster.

These hours will be invested into content marketing. The current hours are spent with any customer questions, optimizing our website's SEO, and meetings with agency owners and discussing if the product is fit for them.

Where can we go to learn more about you and your business?

You can find me here:

• Youtube channel

• Instagram

• X

Get featured?

Let us know here what interesting business you’re running now and we will get in touch!

Hi there, I am Alexis and I'm a time management and productivity coach who helps people do more and stress less through coaching, workshops, and online courses.

My pragmatic, yet fun, approach helps people easily integrate practical, realistic strategies into their lives so that they can do more of what they want and less of what they don't.

I've taught thousands of individuals to take control of their time and her clients include Google, Lyft, Workday, Capital One, Upwork and more.

I live in San Francisco and before I opened my business, I spent the first 15+ years of my career managing operations and HR at several early-stage start-ups, where there was way more to do than people to do it.

Burnout was rampant. While working in these high-stress environments (and having a couple of kids along the way), I started developing and implementing strategies for productivity at work, and in my personal life, to ensure that goals were met, balls were not dropped, and that, most importantly, stress didn't get the best of me.

Together, we'll identify strategies and techniques that work best for them, so they can feel more in control and accomplish more with less stress. I also offer group coaching using the same proprietary framework.

On the enterprise side, I conduct interactive workshops that help teams increase productivity and reduce burnout. Additionally, I offer several online courses for self-paced, low cost access.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

As mentioned above, before starting my business I worked in startups with roles like Director of Operations, Director of HR and Chief of Staff and I was also an outsourced HR Director for many start ups.

I actually never thought of myself as the risk-taking, entrepreneurial type, but when the last startup I worked for shut down (as most start ups do), I found the prospect of applying for jobs, interviewing and trying to rebuild all the trust an autonomy I'd had in my jobs working for the same CEO over the last 10 years so distasteful that I decided to start a company instead!

Over time, people started recognizing these skills and starting to come to me for help with streamlining processes, creating systems, prioritization and general time management. So when I decided to go out on my own, I realized that the most impactful thing I’d been doing was helping others with time management, productivity and stress reduction.

And luckily, that was also the aspect of my career that was the most fulfilling for me. At that point I decided to open my own time management and productivity coaching and consulting business so that I could help others kill it at work, and have fulfilling personal lives as well. I haven’t looked back.

Turns out, there are a lot of folks really struggling in this department so there was strong product-market fit. When I started, I had no idea what I was doing. But I knew I could help others with these skills. So I started by trying to codify everything I thought I knew and could teach. I started writing best practices docs on all these topics. Once I had a few dozen, I started grouping them together and a curriculum started to reveal itself. Then I got my first coaching client (who found me on LinkedIn) and I started building up my coaching program and curriculum 1 week at a time, basically a week ahead of actually delivering it. I didn't have to spend much at all to get started. I bought a domain name for $15, and I made my own website on Squarespace for $200/year, and I got a few tools (Calendly for $120/year, Gsuite for $6/month, Zoom for $15/month). Also, my first client was about an hour's drive from me, so I suggested that we do all our sessions over Zoom. And I stuck with that. So I've always been able to work from my home office. However, I do often fly to a client's location when I'm delivering a talk or workshop.

How did you get your initial customers?

The very first thing I did was email literally every single person whose email address I had access to. (Like, literally everyone; people I hadn't talked to from high school, the insurance agent from a job 10 year ago, etc.) It was VERY uncomfortable.

BUT, I figured that the only way for me to actually start getting clients was to tell as many people as possible about what I was doing.

I also went to conferences with a big stack of business cards and made it a point to engage as many people in conversation as possible. Not in a sleazy way, just to get comfortable talking about myself and my business.

My very first client found me on LinkedIn, but the next few came out of that initial email blast. And after that word of mouth really worked in my favor.

Today, I'm working with several people who are referrals of referrals of that very first client. I've also focused on content marketing. I write a blog post once a week and email it to my email list, repost on LinkedIn and Medium, create a Youtube video on the same topic, and create social content from those assets.

And I've focused on increasing SEO through backlinks by using services like HARO and Qwoted. I'm also a guest on a lot of podcasts, because it can't hurt to be introduced to other people's audiences.

How are you promoting your business now?

I've been trying out Tiktok! :)

But honestly, consistency is a strength of mine.

I've published an article every week for almost 6 years. I respond to HARO and Qwoted queries weekly. My assistant applies for me to be a guest on podcasts weekly.

And, for the first time ever, I'm about to start testing out ads.

How does your business make money?

Currently my business model is comprised of 4 verticals:

• 1:1 coaching

• Group coaching cohorts

• Corporate training/workshops/speaking

• Online courses (I have 4 online courses on Udemy: all priced under $200)

In terms of expanding monetization options, I'm looking into creating a time management certification program for coaches and I'm considering replacing my cohort based group coaching program with a membership.

I'm not comfortable sharing exact numbers, but I can say this: I'm making more than 3x what I was making when I was a W2 employee and my profit margin is around 85%.

Where can we go to learn more?

You can find me here:

• Free downloads: Distraction Action Plan

• Website

• Youtube

• Instagram: @do.more.stress.less

• Facebook

Thank you for reading!

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Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

Hey everyone, I am Tadej Bogataj, entrepreneur and the co-founder of CartBoss: a leading SaaS solution designed to recover abandoned shopping carts through automated and personalized SMS campaigns.

When I started to get into eCommerce as a developer, content management systems were the fastest solution to roll out new projects.

I explored various different options on the market including Joomla, OpenCart, and Magento. For me, none of them offered a solution that would offer the flexibility and simplicity as WordPress did. The large support from the community was also a huge bonus.

I started to get heavily involved in the development of eCommerce websites until I started a business doing just that. We focused on high-performance online shops that operate in the EU market.

During that time I met my future business partner, who was also developing eCommerce websites for large companies. We regularly collaborated on ways on how to grow conversion rates and optimize marketing spending for the clients we both had. One of the areas of marketing optimization was abandoned cart recovery which we were both fascinated by. We believed that emails were a thing of the past and that there must be a better way.

We wanted to reach more people who abandoned the checkout process as fast as possible within a time frame when they were still considering buying the product.

This is how we got to the idea of sending text messages to recover abandoned carts. We named our solution CartBoss.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

We researched the idea of using text messages as a way of getting in touch with the people who abandoned their shopping carts and found statistics that were just unimaginable compared to emails.

Text messages have an open rate of 93% within the first 3 minutes of receiving them and an overall open rate of 99%. We knew this was the way to go.

There were a few competitors on the market but fortunately, we were both working closely with big eCommerce companies and knew the challenges they were facing on a daily basis – one of them was the lack of time.

To offer a better solution than the competition, we knew we had to make a simple solution that companies could start using within just a few minutes after registration.

So we prepared, tested, and optimized our own text messages, got them translated, and made a complete service completely automated.

In order to really offer the best-converting messages, we also contacted people from every country in which the message was written to truly confirm that the message is correctly translated.

We made our solution for recovering abandoned carts with text messages as simple to use as possible with minimal settings required from our users.

Not only does CartBoss automatically detect and send text messages in the language of the recipient but it does so much more to save time for our users and optimize conversion rates to the maximum possible.

What is your marketing approach?

It was mostly word of mouth.

Since I had a development company that focused on Ecommerce, I had a bunch of phone numbers of CEOs and connections to other vital members in various companies. So thats the way we got our first clients.

Later on - we experimented with ads, SEO, social media. We tried various promotions ie. offering free credits, discounts etc.

In the end, you realize that if you offer a discount in the beginning, people want an additional discount. So we dont do that anymore.

Additionally, sharing case studies is really beneficial!

When we got a bunch of clients from a specific store type (i.e. selling fashion products), we prepared case studies on those subjects and started reaching out to companies like that!

Word of mouth is still strong with us. But now we also have a bunch of online review, we're also really well astablished with SEO, people talk about our solution...

How does your business make money?

It's a pay-as-you-go model. It is great for conversions :)

The business is currently doing around $16,000 in monthly recurring revenue, and I spend a few hours per week with the emails and a few meetings.

Where can we go to learn more about you and your business?

You can find me on:

• LinkedIn

• CartBoss official website

• Our blog

Thank you for reading!

What is the business and who’s behind it?

Jason’s Plugins for Carrd is exactly what it sounds like: a collection of custom-built plugins that enhance the functionality of Carrd websites.

Carrd is a popular, minimal website builder used by indie makers, freelancers, and hustlers who love keeping things simple. But simple can sometimes be... too simple.

Enter Jason Leow. A former Singapore government service designer turned indie creator, Jason saw an opportunity where most saw limitations.

When Carrd lacked features like advanced form controls, animations, or popups, he built them himself—then turned those fixes into products. With only himself on the team, he now earns ~$1,000/month in plugin sales, proving that niche + useful + community = winning formula.

Despite working 12 hours a day in his current day job, Jason did not let that deter him from working on this side hustle.

He didn’t build a startup in Silicon Valley. He didn’t raise VC funding or chase unicorn dreams. Instead, he tapped into a tiny niche—plugins for a one-page website builder called Carrd—and quietly built a $12,000/year side hustle that runs on passion, community, and scrappy experimentation. Not bad for a one-man show.

How was the business started?

After a decade running a consulting agency, Jason felt the pull toward indie making again. He’d already walked away from a cushy government job years ago—so quitting “safe” paths was nothing new.

This time, his new venture came from personal need: as a fan and power-user of Carrd, he found the platform great, but missing some features he craved.

He shared from an interview:

“I love using the website builder Carrd, and the tight community around it. Over time, I noticed I wanted my Carrd sites to do more, and have certain features/components which were not available on the platform.”

So he did what indie hackers do—he scratched his own itch.

At first, Jason created plugins just for his own use and shared them for free with the Carrd community. That generosity turned into trust. That trust turned into demand. And soon, Jason was getting messages like, “Hey, I’d pay for a plugin that solves X.”

That was the spark. From there, he built more plugins, tested pricing, and slowly turned this into a low-key, bootstrapped revenue stream—all from within the Carrd ecosystem he was already a part of.

How did he grow the business?

Jason’s growth wasn’t fueled by flashy launches or paid ads (at least not at first). His superpower? He was a genuine member of the Carrd community. That gave him something money can't buy: trust and insight.

He hung out in Telegram groups, Facebook communities, and Reddit threads—listening, sharing tools, solving problems.

He started with free plugins, which built goodwill and awareness. Then, when the right opportunity came—a plugin that solved a juicy, repeated problem—he introduced a paid version.

For growth, he’s tried:

• Sponsorships on other Carrd maker sites (worked well!)

• Posting across social media channels

• SEO using Google Search Console, SEMrush, and Ahrefs

• Free tools to stay visible and helpful

But not everything clicked. Sponsoring newsletters targeting general indie hacker audiences didn’t convert well. Turns out, niche tools need niche distribution.

Recently, Jason also started committing to do marketing daily, creating a Github repo to help him stay committed. You can find out more from his post here.

How does the business make money?

Jason keeps it simple. He sells paid Carrd plugins through his own site plugins.carrd.co.

Some are one-time purchases, others may have tiered options. His pricing is aimed at indie makers and freelancers—affordable, functional, and clearly solving a pain point.

All revenue is product-based—no services, no coaching, no fluff. Just plugins that work.

With $12,000 in yearly income, it’s not unicorn territory—but that’s not the point.

For Jason, this side hustle brings in money, fuels his creative drive, and best of all, gives him the freedom to build on his terms.

Where can we go to learn more about the business?

• Jason’s Twitter

• Company’s Twitter

• Company’s website

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Let us know here what interesting business you’re running now and we will get in touch!

Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

Hey there! I'm Tony Lea, a family man and web developer who loves to hack on fun projects.

I'm the creator of DevDojo, a platform and community that provides developers with tools to build sites and apps.

DevDojo began 10 years ago and started off as a small agency. Over time the agency website transformed into an educational site where I would create videos and tutorials for developers.

Over the last 3-4 years, myself as well as my cofounder Bobby have built tools and resources for developers to make it what it is today. It has been an exciting adventure where we are still learning and discovering new things as we grow.

We also have a few popular Open source projects including Voyager, Wave, and most recently Genesis.

When I'm not digging into new projects and brainstorming fun ideas, you'll usually find me hanging out with my Family at DisneyWorld or Sporting Events.

.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

It's been a journey getting to where I'm at today, but a fun one, none-the-less. I've had many jobs on my way to becoming a developer, but I've always been into computers.

I've worked as a bottle boy at a local Market, McDonalds for 2-weeks (hated every minute of it), and finally I had a got a decent gig where I worked customer service for Adobe.

This was back around 1999 and where my interest in computers really started to excel. I eventually went to school for Software Engineering at OregonTech.

After graduating I moved to SanDiego and worked with many companies as a beginner Engineer. After a few years I started doing some freelancing and a few years later DevDojo was Born. I had always been intrigued and loved visiting developer sites that helped me build my own app.

That inspired me to build DevDojo and grow it to eventually be a hub for developer videos and tutorials. The first product on DevDojo was unlocking Premium Videos and Tutorials. It was and still is a subscription service. Eventually I started building products like Tails, Wave, Pines and more.

I guess you could say I wanted to build an Adobe type of business, but specific for Developer Tools. The only cost to create the first iterations of DevDojo was the cost of time (and hosting services of course). It's been a windy road with many twists and turns, but it's worth every bit of effort. I feel extremely lucky that I get to work on fun projects and things that I really enjoy.

How did you get your first initial customers?

After DevDojo become a "product" website and no longer an "agency" website, it took me about 3 years to aquire my first 50 customers.

But even at that point I wasn't focused on getting more customers, but rather adding more content and building up my SEO. I figured it was best to build an audience and maximize my reach before I built something I wanted to sell.

The day I reached my 100th customer marked a significant milestone in this journey. The excitement was so overwhelming that I couldn't resist sharing my joy with the world, as evidenced by this tweet:

We are currently sitting at about 650 paid customers and we are currently sitting at about 85,000 registered users in the community.

Since launch, what are your marketing strategies or channels to get new customers?

Our main marketing channel for DevDojo is SEO.

We currently get around 130,000 visitors to our website every month from SEO and it seems to be working pretty well.

We are also active on Twitter (X) and do some "Build in Public" self promotions from our personal accounts.

How does your business make money?

We currently have a subscription model to access premium content as well as gain access to our premium tools.

Here is a breakdown of our current prices:

We may experiment in the future with different price points, but these seem to be working pretty well for us at the moment. We are also working on more Open Source projects that we hope to monetize by offering premium features to DevDojo Pro subscribers.

We are currently making anywhere from $7,000 - $10,000 a month.

There are some months that are higher and months that are lower. We also do some deals during the Holiday season that usually increase the monthly revenue.

We are still learning and trying to grow the business more, so if y'all have any tips on how we can make the product better, be sure to send us a message!

Where can we go to learn more about you and your business?

Be sure to checkout our website and all our projects!

Thanks for reading!

.

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What do ancient Roman coins and modern YouTube have in common?

For Dean Kinzer, the answer is $80,000 a year.

Dean took a dusty family coin collection and turned it into a thriving side hustle by educating collectors, selling rare coins, and building a loyal audience in one of the most overlooked corners of the collectible world. All by making ancient history feel surprisingly relevant—and profitable—today.

Dean Kinzer is the founder of KinzerCoins.com and the creator of Ancient Coin Hour, a YouTube channel and podcast focused on ancient coin collecting.

His content helps new collectors understand what ancient coins are, how to avoid getting scammed, and where to find coins that aren’t just rare—but meaningful.

What makes Dean stand out is how he positions himself: not just as a dealer, but as a translator between the ancient and modern worlds. He’s on a mission to make ancient coins more accessible to American collectors, especially those new to the scene.

He’s not a history professor or museum curator—he’s a relatable, passionate collector who just happens to know how to turn his obsession into a business.

How was the business started?

Dean’s love of coins started with his dad, a coin and baseball card dealer. But it wasn’t until his father passed away that Dean got hands-on.

While managing the estate, he came across a tribute penny from the Tiberius era (yes, like in the Bible), and that kicked off his deep dive into ancient coins.

As he started learning, Dean realized how hard it was to find trustworthy, beginner-friendly information online. Forums were intimidating. Videos were overly technical. And most content assumed you already knew what you were doing.

So Dean decided to fill that gap. He joined a 10,000-member Facebook group, started listening, learning, and then launched his own podcast and YouTube channel.

He even teamed up with Josh Benevento—a Grammy-winning opera singer and longtime numismatist—as a co-host to balance deep expertise with relatable storytelling.

That pairing gave Ancient Coin Hour its voice: smart, nerdy, and totally beginner-friendly.

What are some of the marketing strategies used?

Dean didn’t blow up on YouTube overnight—and he didn’t need to.

His marketing strategy was all about community and credibility. He built real relationships in collector groups, showed up to trade shows, and slowly positioned himself as a helpful, trustworthy voice in a niche that sorely lacked it.

YouTube and podcasting became his megaphone. Every episode and video was tailored to a new collector’s mindset—answering questions like: Is this coin fake? Where should I buy my first one? What’s this emperor’s story?

He also brought in heavy-hitters: auction house owners, veteran dealers, authors—people who typically stay behind the scenes. This gave his audience insider access and helped Dean build trust by association.

Offline, Dean networked like crazy. He partnered with other dealers, explored collaborations with museums, and even attended SXSW to introduce ancient coins to a whole new crowd. His goal was simple: be the loudest, friendliest voice in a niche with almost no digital presence.

How does the business make money?

Dean’s monetization model is smart and diversified.

First, he makes money through retail sales of ancient coins on his website—sourcing and reselling them at a 30–40% gross margin. Then there’s auction representation, where collectors hire him to research, vet, and bid on high-value coins at major auctions (either online or in person).

He also offers a subscription service that gives paying members early access to hard-to-find coins before they go public—creating urgency and exclusivity without requiring a huge inventory upfront.

And with 40,000+ YouTube subscribers, Dean earns from ad revenue and uses his content as a funnel for all the above.

Best of all, ancient coins are incredibly versatile. You can buy a Roman bronze coin from the Constantine era for $20… or a silver denarius celebrating the assassination of Julius Caesar for $4 million. That wide range gives Dean flexibility to serve both beginner collectors and serious investors.

He’s not just selling old metal—he’s selling stories, symbols, and slices of history.

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Where can we go to learn more about the business?

• KinzerCoins’ official website

• Ancient Coin Hour

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Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

Hey there, I am Tony and I'm a 42 years old old school web developer (HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, MySQL) from Romania.

I’m currently running Jimpl, a website with an online EXIF data viewer that uncovers hidden metadata from your photos.

Whenever I have a problem, I research what solutions are out there and if I find a good one, I try to buy it.

If I can't afford it or the owner doesn't want to sell it, I build my own version.

Most of the time, only 1 out of 20 sites I build catches-on, because I'm not that good at promoting them.

This is why lately I leaned more on buying sites

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

Jimpl.com was actually an acquisition, a lucky one I would say!

Back in 2020, I wanted to check the metadata of an old photo (hidden information in photos, like location, camera, etc) and that's how I've discovered Jimpl.

The site was launched in 2010 and grew organically. I loved how simple and straight to the point it was, so I've contacted the owner and asked if he's interested in selling it.

It turns out that he was from Ukraine and he wanted to escape the war and start a new life in Gdansk, Poland.

We decided to meet in Budapest and do the deal.

How are you marketing the business right now?

When I bought it, the traffic was organic and it kept steady since then.

I know I should spend more time promoting and improving the service, but I've been busy with my other projects, so I've kind of neglected Jimpl (Please get in touch if you have ideas on how I could grow the site)

The only thing I've added to the site since I've bought it, was the option to remove EXIF metadata from a photo:

This allows for photos to be "fingers print" free, so no one can track the author.

As for improvement plans, several users asked for an ad-free version and I'm thinking about adding a paid version, which has no ads and offers extra features.

I'll just have to get on and build this.

I haven't done any kind of marketing for it, as I said, I'm not really good at that. The main source of traffic is just Google and return visitors, which I shows that users really love the service.

How does the business make money?

The site is monetized with Google Ads only.

I'm thinking about adding a paid plan for heavy usage, but haven't got to it yet, so currently the site is 100% free!

The site made about 1000EUR every month. My only cost is hosting, which costs about 60EUR/m and it's a dedicated server from Hetzner where I host other sites that I own also.

Since this is a tool site, it's currently on auto-pilot and I spend zero time on it.

Where can we go to learn more?

I'm not very active on social media, but those interested in my projects can follow me on Twitter.

You can also get in touch using this simple contact form.

Thank you for reading!

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Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

Hey! My name is AJ Picard. I'm grew up in a small town outside of Philadelphia called Harleysville.

I'm 32 years old and I'm currently building OneTap, which is a clipboard app that allows you to copy / paste photos, texts, links or files within one tap (pun intended) in any app (more on this later).

I try to work on OneTap as much as I can, but during the day I'm a full-time UI / UX designer and I also do freelance design work.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

Oh man I'm excited to dive into this question.

So I've been designing / building products since I 2017, none have been successful. It was 2020 and I had the idea for OneTap when I found myself constantly copy / pasting my startup at the times website / app link.

I thought to myself there has to be an easier way copy / paste things and I would need to be able to copy / paste what I need from within any app, I don't want to be forced to leave what I'm doing inside an app just to copy / paste something. I recorded the idea in my notes so I wouldn't forget about it.

In Jan of 2021, I decided to shut down my startup and take a break. My wife and I found out we were having a baby so it was time I find a job! I took a couple of months off but continued to get this itch to start a product again.

So I started looking at my idea list and the when I saw it the idea again my lightbulb went off. I spent all summer designing the MVP and from there I was going to figure out how to build it. I reached out to software development companies who were quoting me 44-80k to develop it which is something I wasn't going to do. I asked my buddies that knew how to code, but they weren't in love with the idea.

One day, I came across this Capstone Program at the University of Albany where you could pitch your idea and if students liked your pitch, they could decide to work build it. OneTap got selected, and from September - January a group of 4 students built OneTap, for FREE!

Now, the finished product barely worked, but the good news was I could at least showcase how to copy / paste links.

I started sharing the MVP on Twitter, where I gained 400 beta Users and connected with the most important person I've been in the past 6 years, Om Chachad. Om reached out saying he loved my concept for OneTap and would love to help take it to the next level. This was in June of 2022, he took the summer to rebuild it and we launched it on 9/22/24.

To this day Om and I are still working together to take OneTap to the next level, pretty insane how things work out.

How did you get your first initial customers?

Well, Om and I started brainstorming how we could get people to subscribe to OneTap and that's when we started building exclusive features only for Pro Users.

When we officially launched we converted about 150 of those 400 beta testers and then we also launched on Producthunt that same day.

We got #3 Product of day and made about $80. I know it's pretty low but once I saw people would pay for OneTap I knew we could scale it.

Since day 1, I've been posting on X & Threads. Occasionally TikTok, but I'm not much of a video content creator.

Still looking for someone who can focus on marketing for us, I believe that's the missing piece to taking OneTap to the next level.

Since launch, what are your marketing strategies or channels to get new customers?

Honestly, 90% of our users come from App Store Search / Browsing. We get about 1,500 new users a month, so do the math.

The reason App Store Search / Browsing is so high is because I've spent hours and hours improving OneTaps App Store Search Optimization.

It's the most boring thing to work on for your app, but imo the most important. Since we had the right ASO in place, when creators featured us on their channels, we would rank up on the keywords we've set which made Apple suggest downloading OneTap more.

This led to a more consistent growth than just short term growth from getting featured on these channels.

There's so many factors that affect your ASO, like your name, subtitle, description, keywords, App Store Preview pages and reviews. I could talk about this topic forever, feel free to reach out if you have any questions happy to help! As of late I've been posting on X & Threads.

On X mainly using the #BuildingInPublic hashtag on my posts or I post in the Build In Public community.

I've been getting a lot more engagement on Threads though. I've been uploading concept designs for OneTap that been getting in front of a lot of people which have led to more downloads & revenue.

I've uploaded some snapshots of the traction OneTap was gaining before I started focusing on ASO and then after I started focusing on.

How does your business make money?

Right now we offer the following options when upgrading to OneTap Pro:

As of now we don't have any future plans of expanding on monetization.

On average , OneTap is generating $1,500 in total revenue each month.

The beauty about OneTap is how we lean we built it. It doesn't have any servers that we have to pay for since we're saving everything on the Users iCloud.

We also did this to enhance security for our Users. It's important they know we don't have access to any of the data they upload in OneTap. Because of this, we have nearly 0 expenses.

The only thing we pay for each month is our AI feature, which ranges from $20 - $75 a month. We also lose 30% of our revenue since Apple also takes a cut, but other than that our margins are very high.

How much time do you spend on the business?

I usually work on OneTap in the morning, and get back to it right after the work. I also spend time on weekends working on.

I would say I average about 20-30 hours a week answering support emails, answer reviews, creating design concepts, making website improvements, blogging, posting on socials.

Where can we go to learn more about you and your business?

I'd love to connect with all of you on social media, feel free to reach out if you need someone to design your product or want to chat about ASO, Design, etc.

• Threads

• X

• TikTok:

• Instagram

Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

My name is Sabyr and I am the founder of RedditAgency.com.

I also built: RedditScheduler.com and MVPAgency.org, on top of working a 9-5 job.

I am 23 years old this year. I started my journey one year ago. Since that period, I have built more than 15 small bets. Yeah, I know, most of them, didn't make any money, so I left them.

RedditAgency is a service that i provide to help businesses find their ideal customers fast on the Reddit platform.

We provide services like audience analysis, Reddit research, content creation and also data and analytics.

My business now focuses on helping busy founders with marketing and development.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

I started my journey when I found Marc Lou on Youtube.

I saw how he was building his small bets on the Internet. I told myself if he can do it, I can do it.

After I found about X and community of "Building in Public". I joined and started building and sharing everything what I do daily on X.

I started with a challenge created by Pieter Levels called the "12 startups in 12 months" One by one, I executed. Started with simple landing pages then continued to complex SaaS.

Of course, during the whole journey I had a lot of doubts and could left a lot of times. But I did it anyway.

I am building everyday, shipping and doing everything by myself. On the first version of my current tool, I spent around $10-50 on hosting (Vercel + Domain name).

What is your marketing approach?

I mainly started posting content online on X and Reddit.

I also reached out to people who were interested in my niche, asking them questions and invited them to calls. I listened carefully and executed all their requests during these calls.

To sign my first client, I went through around 30 calls. I wrote a lot of emails to potential clients. Here’s my approach: first I suggested them a free call, where I listen to their problems and then try to solve their issues. Next. I followed up with emails in one hour advance email reminder.

I also started getting inbound requests from posting content on X and Reddit. Most of them were 0 deals though. But after I started listening more and started writing more content and suggesting a book link, I started getting more sales eventually.

Don't try to create content for everyone. Instead focus on specific group of people, or your preferred niche.

• If you are digital nomads, focus on digital nomads.

• If you are pet owner, focus on pet owners.

• If you are housekeeper, focus on housekeeper.

I understood simple things. It is better to have 2 or 3 channels that bring in customers than 10 different channels that bring nothing.

How does your business make money?

I operate on a B2B level. I work directly with business owners around one time payments to help them with growth on Reddit.

I charge from $1,000 depends on amount of work/time/complexity and value to clients. Expand amount of clients, bring more value and charge more.

The business is currently doing around $5,000 MRR. I work around 4-12 hours on a daily basis, at least 28-84 hours per week on this business.

Where can we go to lean more about you and your business?

You can find me at the following links:

• Twitter

• RedditAgency

• Reddit Scheduler

• MVP Agency

Thank you for reading this!

Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

Hi! My name is Piotr Kulpinski and I'm the 37-year old founder of a directory website called OpenAlternative.

It's a community-driven list of open source alternatives to popular, proprietary software. I am a software developer living in Poland. I've been building tools for directory builders on the side since 2016.

Last year, I finally decided to build one myself and quickly scraped together a website, now known as OpenAlternative.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

I have been collecting a list of open-source software for a while. Primarily for my own use (to learn and reuse parts of the code), but I thought it would be valuable to share it with others. I was also interested in learning more about SEO and growth, so I considered this a good project to experiment with.

I didn't want to spend too much time on it, so I decided to build it within 48 hours. With such a short timeframe, I had to be very selective about the features I wanted to include. I decided to build a simple listing without search or filtering capabilities. I started by expanding the list of open-source software.

I used a combination of Google, Reddit, and GitHub to find the most popular open-source projects. I also drew from my own knowledge and experience to identify lesser-known projects that I thought were worth including. I didn't want to include every open-source project I could find.

I wanted to maintain a high-quality list focused on the most popular, useful software and actively maintained projects. I collected about 70 projects in total.

For the backend, I opted for Airtable as a database. It's a simple, no-code solution that I've used before. It's not the most powerful database, but it's perfect for a project like this. I could easily add, edit, and delete records, and it has an embeddable form functionality that I used for user submissions.

With the data and the site structure in place, I started building the site. I used Tailwind CSS for the styling, and I was able to build the site in about 12 hours. The good thing about having multiple projects under my belt is that I can reuse a lot of code I've written before.

Building an open-source listing, it was pretty obvious that I should open-source the code as well.

To make the site more useful, I decided to include some data from GitHub. I built a scheduled Cloudflare Worker that pulls the GitHub API data to fetch the number of stars, forks, and issues for each project.

I also pulled some related tags from each repo, such as what programming language it's written in and what it's related to (e.g., CMS, CRM, etc.). I then put this data into Airtable and used it to generate lots of pages for programmatic SEO.

The site launched in February 2024, but no one really heard about it until March 2024.

How did you get your first initial customers?

If you've ever built a directory website, you know that it can be a great way to showcase a collection of resources, products, or services.

However, monetizing a directory website can be a bit of a challenge. I've experienced this firsthand.

I quickly realized that earning money with OpenAlternative was going to be challenging.

Once I saw the traffic I was getting from the launch, I quickly added a tiny banner to the site allowing people to pay $99/month for a premium listing.

Even though I was getting a lot of pushback in the comments on Reddit and Hacker News, I managed to get my first sale very quickly (on launch day).

After that, I took the offer down and didn't monetize the site for a few months until I came up with a sustainable monetization solution.

Since then, I've managed to come up with several ways to earn money from the site: advertisements, expedited + featured listings, and affiliate links.

From all of those sources combined, the site makes around $5,000 per month.

Since launch, what are your marketing strategies or channels to get new customers?

Given that it's a tech-related project, what has worked best for me is posting consistently on developer-related websites like Reddit or Hacker News.

You have to be very careful not to get banned quickly there, so always try to provide value to readers and avoid being too spammy. SEO is starting to bring more and more visitors to the site, but it took a little longer than I expected.

I started to see significant traffic from search only after a year since launching. With SEO growing, LLMs also started to cite OpenAlternative in their results, which is also a promising channel with growing traffic.

How does your business make money?

OpenAlternative is making money mostly from banner ads and premium listings. We also sell an option to expedite the submission process for new tools.

The featured listing currently costs $197/mo and the expedited listing option is available for $97 one-time fee.

A small percentage of the revenue is also earned through affiliate commissions - a channel that's very new to me but I'm slowly getting better at it. I'm currently experimenting with some innovative ideas to monetize, like calculating the ad price based on the popularity of a specific subpage.

Last month, OpenAlternative made $6,000 from all of the sources, $3,500 of it being monthly recurring revenue from ads and featured listings.

The costs are currently very low. Running at ~$50-100 per month.

Where can we go to learn more about you and your business?

If you want to learn more about me and my work, feel free to visit https://kulpinski.pl and follow me on X/Twitter.

Got an interesting business to share? Let us know here!

Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?

Hello there, my name is Kevin Pereira, i'm from Las Vegas, NV and i'm 35 years old.

I started a successful cleaning company at 24 years old, sold it, traveled around the world a bit, and built a software company for people to start and grow their cleaning companies.

It's called ConvertLabs.

How did you start this business? Take us through the process.

Our first successful software venture was GrooveJar, which we sold.

Then we built Convert27.com, which was a marketing software at the start for a cleaning business software called Launch27.

But Launch27 was sold, and due to them being a credit card processing company that wanted to move users from Stripe to their own processor, we can then compete with them and build our own booking software so we rebranded to ConvertLabs.

What are some of your marketing strategies?

Initially they came from facebook groups we were running, but now 90% of our users come from cohorts where we teach people how to start their own cleaning company.

We also have our own Youtube channel, where we published many content relating to our industry.

We've tried a lot of paid ads, and marketing experts, but nothing really beats using cohort training. People want to be in a community with others doing the same thing.

Our weak spots are still in SEO, but we hope to invest in that soon.

For onboarding subscribers, we usually do a call with them after signing up so that they can familiarize themselves with the software and help them get set up.

How does your business make money?

We're operating on a subscription basis, most of our users pay $197/month.

We're down from our high of $55,000 MRR but on the way up now. It's been a rocky road as we've been building this business.

Where can we go to learn more?

You can check out our community as well as our website.

Thank you for reading!

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