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Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

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Re: Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

#91

Post by rmah »

corry wrote: post #50
segmondy wrote: post #37

$1k MRR is nothing to brag about. Seriously, we need to start aiming much higher. If this was "My 1hr a day side project hitting $1kMRR in 12months", then it's impressive. But I often see these non side projects and I just want to voice that it's absolutely not impressive. If you started a business mowing lawn, cutting hair, you better be way past $1K revenue in 6 months. If you're fully committed to building a start…

Forgot to say in my other comment: a huge difference between those businesses and a SaaS product is margin. A $10k MRR SaaS product at 85%+ margins, requires no equipment other than a laptop to maintain, is vastly superior to a lawn mowing company IMO, which will have a truck, a mower, labour, etc. So from a margin perspective, you'd vastly prefer the SaaS product.

It's only 85% margin if your time is valued at $0/hr. IMO, that's just a silly way to look at it.

Re: Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

#92

Post by drran »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #87
55555 wrote: post #58

If it takes you 24 months to hit 1k MRR you are working on the wrong thing. Just stop and move onto a better opportunity.

My startup has 0 MRR and I’ve been working on it for 7 years. What should I do?

Stop calling it "startup". It's mature company now.

Re: Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

#93

Post by icedchai »

corry wrote: post #50
segmondy wrote: post #37

$1k MRR is nothing to brag about. Seriously, we need to start aiming much higher. If this was "My 1hr a day side project hitting $1kMRR in 12months", then it's impressive. But I often see these non side projects and I just want to voice that it's absolutely not impressive. If you started a business mowing lawn, cutting hair, you better be way past $1K revenue in 6 months. If you're fully committed to building a start…

Forgot to say in my other comment: a huge difference between those businesses and a SaaS product is margin. A $10k MRR SaaS product at 85%+ margins, requires no equipment other than a laptop to maintain, is vastly superior to a lawn mowing company IMO, which will have a truck, a mower, labour, etc. So from a margin perspective, you'd vastly prefer the SaaS product.

Most SaaS companies have significant operational costs (cloud spend, operations people, developers fixing bugs, etc.) The small, single person SaaS with huge margins (and real revenue) is largely mythical.

Re: Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

#94

Post by nullsense »

upen946 wrote: post #71
encoderer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$12k a year sounds like a terrible job but that’s because you’re comparing it with an entirely different job and career path. It’s like saying, why be a math professor, just go work on Wall Street. Different pursuits!

Ok. Let me put it this way. In most cases, these are built by indiehackers who automate most of the stuff and work like 5-6 hours a week. I think its still a deal if I am making $1K MRR with 1 hour work per day and if its growing.

Isn't it more like 50 or 60 hours a week and trying to get it from $1k to $2k?

Re: Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

#95

Post by stanislavb »

upen946 wrote: post #56
wenbin wrote: post #49

This is an awesome list! $1k MRR may not sound impressive in Silicon Valley / New York etc., but 1) it's actually pretty good in other places in the world - the world is just too big, too diverse; 2) not many people have the skill to make $1k MRR without working for an established companies, and not many people have the time / energy to do side hustles or have guts to quit their job to find time to do so. $1k MRR is…

Thankyou. Exactly. This is for all those people who would love to have their first sweet spot of achieving $1K MRR to start with. For Silicon Valley/New York, ofcourse $1K MRR is nothing. But we have lot examples who went on nomad life style travelling countries and working from places with cheaper cost of living and in those case $1K MRR is still big.

Nice list, mate! As the founder of SaaSHub, I'd suggest adding it to the list, too. The current MRR is ~$2.4k, and it's been about a bit more than a year since I quit my job and started working full-time on it. https://www.saashub.com/open

Re: Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

#97

Post by z3t4 »

upen946 wrote: post #72
z3t4 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entering a market that has economy of scale (serving 1000 users cost the same as serving 1 user) need a big marketing budget and a sales team and it can take years until you have enough users to become profitable. So unless you have a lot of money beforehand compete at something that doesn't scale (for anyone right now). So it will cost the same ballpark to serve your first user as it will cost an established busines…

What about the popular indiehacking phrase - "Do things that dont scale"?

"Do things that dont scale" - that's good advice because it will make it harder for the big bullies to eat your lunch. But what can't scale today, might scale tomorrow as technology catch up, so if you are lucky you will have a profitable business and domain expertise and be ready to grab the opportunity if/when it arrives.

Re: Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

#98

Post by danjac »

sho wrote: post #6

Wow. There's a lot of projects here that must have taken a lot of work - and look really good - but the MRR is just dismal. There's one there that's pretty close to a side project of mine - not even a grand. Somewhat offputting. Does this mean that many of these projects could stand to put a lot more effort into sales? Would that make a reliable difference? Or is it really just this hard? Or a bit of both? I feel lik…

There's one which seems to be a planning tool for junior military officers:

https://mgrs-mapper.com/

I mean the Pentagon spends billions on things like latrines and office supplies. Assuming this does what it says it does, why is it making pennies?

Re: Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

#99

Post by Drdrdrq »

danjac wrote: post #98
sho wrote: post #6

Wow. There's a lot of projects here that must have taken a lot of work - and look really good - but the MRR is just dismal. There's one there that's pretty close to a side project of mine - not even a grand. Somewhat offputting. Does this mean that many of these projects could stand to put a lot more effort into sales? Would that make a reliable difference? Or is it really just this hard? Or a bit of both? I feel lik…

There's one which seems to be a planning tool for junior military officers: https://mgrs-mapper.com/ I mean the Pentagon spends billions on things like latrines and office supplies. Assuming this does what it says it does, why is it making pennies?

Because Pentagon is not one of its clients?

Re: Startups that have hit more than $1K MRR in about 12-24 months

#100

Post by danjac »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #99
danjac wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one which seems to be a planning tool for junior military officers: https://mgrs-mapper.com/ I mean the Pentagon spends billions on things like latrines and office supplies. Assuming this does what it says it does, why is it making pennies?

Because Pentagon is not one of its clients?

Well obviously not, but that's the point - it seems a few products in this list actually do provide something valuable but are either not being sold to the right customers, or if they are are being sold for peanuts given their worth.
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