Business Email Platform

5 Business Email Platform Success Stories [2024]

Pat Walls

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Updated: October 10th, 2024

In a world where communication is key, launching a business email platform can unlock new opportunities. A business email platform offers companies a professional way to manage their email communications, complete with custom domain addresses, security features, and user-friendly interfaces.

This isn't just another email service; it's a specialized tool designed to meet the unique needs of businesses, from small startups to large enterprises, ensuring efficient and secure communication. The aim here is clear: provide a reliable, scalable email solution that helps companies project a professional image and streamline their operations.

Starting this venture involves understanding email protocols, cybersecurity measures, and user experience design. The payoff? A recurring revenue model with potential for long-term growth as businesses rely more on digital communication. If you’re interested in tech and have a knack for solving communication challenges, this idea deserves serious consideration.

In this list, you'll find real-world business email platform success stories and very profitable examples of starting a business email platform that makes money.

1. Thexyz ($1.8M/year)

Perry, the founder of Thexyz, initially started as a traditional French polishing shop but quickly realized the slow business during Toronto's summer months. To boost his business, he decided to design his own website and found that people were more interested in having him build their online presence. Reluctantly closing his shop, Thexyz was born on October 7th, 2007, and has since become a successful email hosting service.

How much money it makes: $1.8M/year
How much did it cost to start: $50K
How many people on the team: 30

I Built A $1.8M/Year Email Hosting Service [100% Self-Funded]

Thexyz is a self-funded email hosting service generating over $100k of recurring revenue each month, offering uncomplicated privacy and fantastic customer service, and expanding through international sales.

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Read by 4,142 founders

2. Mailman ($360K/year)

This founder has built 25+ side projects. Most of them failed but a few brought in some revenue. After failing small and big over two dozen times, he had one product that investors wanted to invest money in, and after five years of growing it, sold it, and took some time off from making stuff. He started advising and investing in startups, especially crypto startups.

To find time from all the chaos happening in his inbox, he wrote a small script that would make sure that emails landed in his inbox only every four hours, in batches. Nothing comes in between. He used this script to find time to find good ideas that he could be building next.

That’s when he saw a tweet from Andrew Wilkinson (Dribble owner), and he immediately emailed him with the script and a video tutorial. His reply was, “What if we make this into a business?”

How much money it makes: $360K/year
How much did it cost to start: $30K
How many people on the team: 5

We Built A $360K/Year Gmail Plugin That Helps People Manage Their Inbox

Mailman, a tool that allows users to control when and what emails should land in their inbox, is a year-old company bringing in approximately $30k in MRR, while its upcoming features will improve users’ newsletter-reading experience and automate redundant tasks.

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Read by 9,813 founders

3. weMail ($1.44K/year)

Tareq Hasan and his partner Nizam Uddin founded weDevs in 2008, a company focused on building successful WordPress products. After experiencing the need for an affordable and WordPress-based email marketing platform, they developed weMail to save money and offer quality features. Their strategy of targeting the WordPress community and utilizing content marketing has helped attract and retain customers.

How much money it makes: $1.44K/year
How much did it cost to start: $500
How many people on the team: 4

On Launching An Email Marketing Solution For WordPress

weMail is a WordPress-based email marketing tool that boasts affordable email automation and boasts features such as third-party sending APIs and the ability to integrate for free, with over 12K downloads and 500 active installs.

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Read by 6,396 founders

4. antoniarasheva3614 ($1.2K/year)

Antonia Rasheva, an artist and designer by heart but tourist by profession, tapped into her love for abstract art to start a custom fashion and home products business in 2015. Despite initial financial roadblocks, she constantly advertises on social media, aiming to turn a $100/month profit into a sustainable full-time venture.

How much money it makes: $1.2K/year
How many people on the team: 0

On Selling Custom-Designed Fashion And Home Products Online

This case study follows a Bulgarian artist and designer who sells custom products featuring her hand-painted designs, with an average monthly profit of $100, relying heavily on advertising via social media and offline to grow her business.

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Read by 5,293 founders

5. Lotus ($252/year)

Vadim, a software engineer, came up with the idea for his business, Lotus, while working as an open-source maintainer. He struggled to keep up with GitHub notifications and was inspired by the transformative email service, HEY, to create a similar tool for GitHub developers. Since launching last week, Vadim has already earned $261.74 and has been sharing his journey through a weekly newsletter to maintain accountability and keep readers updated on Lotus's development process.

How much money it makes: $252/year
How much did it cost to start: $0
How many people on the team: 0

My journey developing a Mac app for managing GitHub notifications

Lotus app creator Vadim shares the story of how he created a Mac app for managing GitHub notifications and earned $261.74 in his first week as an indie developer, through consistency, careful feature selection, and a powerful toolset including Excalidraw, Buttondown, and Vercel.

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Read by 4,796 founders