MENTA: His 30th Side Project Hit ¥1.4M Monthly Revenue, Then Sold to Lancers

Timeline

Date	Event	Numbers
Apr 2018	Quits client work to focus on products	—
Jun 3, 2018	MENTA launches after 2 months of development	Day 1: ~8,000 visitors, ¥90K GMV
Jun 2018	First month	~¥700K GMV, ~¥120K revenue
Jan 2019	Pivots to programming mentorship only	PMF begins here
Jan 2020	Public milestone	¥9M+ monthly GMV, ¥1.4M revenue
Oct 2020	Share transfer to Lancers (price undisclosed)	—
Dec 2020	His invoicing tool CLOUD PAPER also sold via M&A	—

The business

MENTA is a subscription marketplace where anyone can teach or learn from mentors — eventually 4,000+ registered mentors. It was Irie’s 30th product since 2008. Before launch he recruited 200 mentors, which powered the strong first day.

The numbers only moved after a hard choice: cutting every category except programming. GMV was stuck around ¥700K/month as a general-purpose marketplace; after the January 2019 focus, “the GMV just started growing naturally.”

Lessons

1. 29 misses before the hit — a ~3% hit rate is normal. This matches Pieter Levels’ “4 out of 70+” almost exactly. Solo product success is a game of attempts, not aim.

2. The unlock wasn’t building more — it was cutting. Narrowing a working product feels dangerous; it multiplied GMV more than tenfold. When growth stalls, the diagnosis is usually “unclear who this is for,” not “missing features.”

3. He sold to the company with distribution, not the highest bidder. Lancers owns the skill-share customer base MENTA needed. Choose acquirers by which scarcity they solve for you.

Related cases

• Zenn — acquired 4.5 months after launch
• Peing — the viral-overload exit