Solopreneur case studies — 8/10
Solopreneur and side-business cases
169–192 of 239
PDFShift: An HTML-to-PDF API at $8,500/Month — One Channel Ended a Two-Year Plateau; a $500K Sale Fell Through
A Paris-based solo developer's HTML-to-PDF conversion API earned $9 on day 20, reached 150 customers and $3,200/month by January 2020, and turned profitable that September. MRR flatlined for over two years starting September 2021, then returned to 8–9% monthly growth after resuming Google Ads, now at $8,500/month.
Extra Points: A Newsletter With 679 Paid Subscribers and $4,300/Month, Sold for “Cash + a Job + Equity” — Then Bought Back Three Years Later
Extra Points, a newsletter covering the business side of college sports, was sold to D1.ticker at the stage of 679 paid subscribers and roughly $4,300 in monthly revenue, for a package of cash + a writing job + equity (low six figures, about 2x ARR). Founder Matt Brown kept writing after the sale and bought the business back in 2024.
24 Udemy courses earning $1,500/month, $53,000 cumulative — the 3.5 years since switching to mass production once "$100 per course" became visible
A Udemy instructor with 24 courses earns about $1,500/month and $53,000 cumulative over 3.5 years, after shifting from hit-seeking to steady course production.
From selling 4 pieces for ¥2,400 to ¥200K-500K/month — the ¥600 price point an 8-year handmade artist walked away from
Handmade artist Uni sold ¥600 earrings that moved once every few days — 4 sold meant ¥2,400 total. Eight years in, she now earns ¥200,000-500,000+ a month, driven by repricing and a production workflow built to support higher prices.
Stella: MVP in 2 Days, $350K/Month in 2 Months — an AI App Built by a Solo Creator With 4 Million Followers
AI visualization app Stella hit $300K/month (about ¥45M) two months after launch and $350–360K by interview time, from a 2-day MVP. 12,000 paying customers and 200,000+ downloads. Building a distribution network of 1.2M on Instagram and 2.8M on TikTok before the product mattered.
¥50,000–70,000 a Month in Royalties From 24 Kindle Books: 16 Months of Real Data on "Volume-Production" Self-Publishing, ¥750,000 Cumulative
An author who published 24 books via Kindle self-publishing discloses actual royalties month by month. The first 3 months brought ¥5,000–14,000/month, month 6 crossed into the ¥50,000s, and it has held steady at ¥50,000–70,000/month since. The 16-month cumulative total exceeds ¥750,000 — a "diversified portfolio of books" earning ¥2,000–3,000 per title per month.
Earlyname: Six Rounds of Counteroffers That Turned a $4,500 Bid Into $10,500 — the Complete Record of Selling Small
Ben Stokes built Earlyname in three weeks, ran it for six months at $350/month in subscription revenue, and sold it on MicroAcquire for $10,500 — 30x monthly revenue. He published the entire negotiation, including all six rounds of emails that moved the buyer's opening bid of $4,500 up to $10,500.
A Licensed Tax Accountant Earning ¥700,000 a Month on Coconala: The Record of Reaching Top Category Ranking in Under a Year
JUN, who runs an accounting practice while working at a listed IT company, started on Coconala in June 2019 and reached over ¥700,000 in monthly sales and top placement in the licensed-professionals category (PRO certification) in under a year. His first order, two months in, was worth ¥3,000. A case demonstrating the fit between professional licenses and skill marketplaces.
Formula Bot: An Excel-Formula AI Built During Parental Leave Hit $23,000/Month — Zero Lines of Code, $5,000 in Marketing
David Bressler, from Florida, built an Excel formula-generating AI on Bubble.io during summer 2022 parental leave. It spread on Reddit and made its first sale within 5 minutes of launching paid access; monthly revenue is now $23,000 (about ¥3.45M), on total marketing spend of $5,000.
Easlo: $20K/Month and 356K Followers From Notion Templates, Weekends Only in Military Service
Jason Chin (Easlo) started posting on X on weekends during military service, growing a Notion template business to $20,000/month and 356K followers.
Superpower ChatGPT: Built in 3 Days, Free for 9 Months — 420K Downloads and 350K Newsletter Subscribers
Saeed Ezzati launched an extension he built in 2-3 days during ChatGPT's very first week. He gave it away completely free for 9 months, building a base of 420K downloads, 150K weekly users, and a 350K-subscriber newsletter before introducing a paid tier — reaching five-figure MRR.
Career Sidekick: Selling a Career Site Doing $50K a Month at 80% Margins — Growth by “Niching Down Twice,” and the Exit
Career Sidekick, the career-advice site of former recruiter Biron Clark, grew to 1 million monthly visits (80%+ from search), $50K+ per month, and 80%+ profit margins, and was sold in December 2022 to Singapore's Amai Group (price undisclosed). The brokered sale was "a second job lasting 2–4 months."
Six AI videos, ¥153,030 in the first month — one video with 4.22 million views drove two-thirds of TikTok monetization revenue
An AI video creator posted six videos in TikTok's first monetization month and earned ¥153,030, with one 4.22-million-view video generating about two-thirds of it.
Marketing Examples: 130,000 Subscribers in Three and a Half Years — a “Distribution” Playbook and a $2,300/Month Sponsor Slot
Harry Dry's free newsletter Marketing Examples launched in April 2019 and reached 130,000 subscribers in about three and a half years. A Product Hunt launch brought 2,000, and the rest came from manual distribution into 15-20 Facebook groups and beyond. One sponsor slot started at $2,300/month.
¥748,000 in 30 Days and a Category No. 1 on Coconala. The Listing Strategy of "Niching Down a Commonplace Service"
A hands-on record of earning ¥747,800 in 30 days (Feb–Mar 2022) and reaching No. 1 in the affiliate category on Coconala. The core: improving three things — sales copywriting, profile, and thumbnail — plus a strategy of "taking a commonplace service and listing a niched-down version of it."
¥50,000 a Month, Five Years After the First Release. An Indie App's "Quietly Effective Tactics" — and the Ones That Didn't Work
A case of an indie-developed app reaching ¥50,000 a month — five years after the first release, about two years after monetization began. Funnel improvements and the Apple Small Business Program worked; defaulting to the annual plan and A/B testing did not. The record discloses which tactics succeeded and which failed.
BuiltWith: One Person, $14M a Year (Later Estimated at $22M+) — the True Nature of a 19-Year “Just Look It Up” Service
BuiltWith, which tells you "what technology this website is built with," was started by Australia's Gary Brewer in 2007 and is widely reported to have reached over $14M (about 2.1 billion yen) in annual revenue with effectively one person. Acquisition is 100% organic at 2 million pageviews a month. A record that raised the ceiling on what a one-person business can earn.
Starting a takoyaki food truck cost 2.82–4.39 million yen — a working owner's full line-item breakdown
A takoyaki food-truck owner in Gifu publishes his startup costs item by item: a total of 2.82–4.39 million yen, or 3.8–5.4 million yen once 1 million yen of working capital is added. Vehicle-related costs make up about 70% of the total, splitting expenses into ones that can be trimmed and ones that can't.
10 hours at the day job plus 3 hours commuting, and still ¥94,000/month from a Python automation side business — why he walked away after ¥150,000 total
A systems engineer, six months into his job, narrowed his side hustle to Python + Selenium business automation. His October 2022 orders totaled ¥94,380 — ¥51,480 via Lancers plus ¥42,900 via CrowdWorks. But he walked away after earning ¥150,000 total, and even disclosed why.
CLOUD PAPER: Shingo Irie’s Other Sale — an Estimate/Invoice SaaS Sold via M&A Two Months After the MENTA Transfer
After transferring MENTA to Lancers, Shingo Irie also sold his cloud estimate and invoicing service "CLOUD PAPER" via M&A in December 2020 (price undisclosed). A rare Japanese record of a single indie developer executing two exits in the same year.
Stoic Muse: 100–150 Stoic-Philosophy T-Shirts a Month at 40% Margin — What Actually Worked Was 200 Five-Star Reviews
After burning out on Amazon FBA, an individual reopened a dormant Etsy store in February 2020. Stoic-philosophy print-on-demand T-shirts now sell 100–150 units/month at $3,000/month with 40% margin. Facebook ads broke even; what drove growth was Etsy SEO and 200 five-star reviews.
Bannerbear: 8 Months at $0, 7 Failures, 2 Pivots — the Complete Record of Reaching $10K MRR
Jon Yongfook's image-generation API Bannerbear reached $10,455 MRR in January 2021 — after 7 failed products in a 12-startups-in-12-months challenge, Previewmojo plateauing at $400, and an API pivot that churned existing customers. He has published the numbers and tactics of every phase.
Living Cozy: After Six Failed SaaS Startups, a 350K-Monthly-Visitor Home-Decor Comparison Site Sold for Six Figures in Three Years
Ash Read failed at six software companies, then built the home-decor comparison site Living Cozy on weekends using Webflow, grew it to 350K monthly pageviews and an 80% margin, and sold it via Flippa for six figures in 2023. The turning point was giving up on being "a builder" and leaning into his 10 years of skill instead.
STARBAR Okinawa: Selling a Thriving Bar to Fund a Shabu-Shabu Chain — a “Strategic Fundraising” M&A
STARBAR, an upscale bar in Okinawa City serving U.S. military-affiliated customers, was transferred to Aichi-based trading company Pembroke while still a thriving business with healthy finances and high margins. The goal was not retreat but securing funds for multi-store expansion of a new shabu-shabu concept — a real example of "sell the profitable store and bet on the next one" as strategic fundraising.