Starter Story Sunday Breakfast #11

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Updated: September 27th, 2022

This is an archive of the Starter Story newsletter, which is read by 247K people every week.

In each issue, we share the biggest business ideas that are working today, along with case studies of founders who are making millions every month. Sign up today ➜

What is the Sunday Breakfast?

It's 5 bite-sized case studies to get you motivated for the week ahead. You can read it in 2 minutes or less.

I hope you enjoy it:

1. The orange juice 🍊

This SaaS 10x'd its revenue in just one year

Two main pillars sustain this incredible growth:

#1. Launching products. Successfully leveraging Product Hunt raised their brand awareness and also attracted tons of new users. An example of this is their WordleMail.

#2. SEO. Producing useful content that is relevant to their target audience has resulted in a 10x organic visits growth. One of their biggest hits has been a set of email flows templates that is perfect for their target audience: email marketers.

Key takeaway: SaaS businesses and content go hand in hand. If you’re working on a SaaS product, start producing content as soon as possible and think of content not just as blog posts, get creative!

2. The coffee ☕️

This founder broke multiple records on Shark Tank

But the most amazing thing about this business is how they created a new category called “Impact as a service”.

Their mission is so innovative that they quickly got lots of attention on social media and even received an invitation to participate in Shark Tank (yes, they were invited).

And what do they do? They’re basically an affiliate travel business but instead of keeping the commission, they spend that money on planting trees.

So far they’ve planted over 160K trees.

What can you learn from this? Besides realizing how far a compelling mission can take you, this founder does a great job showing the power of great storytelling, a skill every founder needs to train.

3. The eggs 🍳

These founders are on a 9-year journey to build a home-cooked food marketplace

I love showcasing stories like this one.

It truly is a real example of what most people can expect when starting their own business:

Had the entrepreneur itch for a long time
Found a pain in their daily lives
Confirmed that pain with a bunch of other people
Built a prototype
Worked on it as a side project
Got some early traction
Went full time
Currently working on scaling it

The best about this case study? Seeing how hard these founders are grinding. They’ve literally knocked on 2,500 doors to get people into their platform.

4. The toast 🥪

This after-sex cleanup solution became a $1.4M/year business

Hands down, this is one of the most unique products we’ve featured on Starter Story.

As with many great products, the inspiration for this cum sponge came to solve a personal problem the founder was experiencing: after-sex cleanup.

It’s great to see the process of a solo founder with very little capital creating a product that literally didn’t exist.

Key takeaway: Embrace your uniqueness and don’t be afraid to jump into less common spaces. In fact, those spaces tend to be less crowded and the media loves to feature the kind of products that raise people’s eyebrows.

5. The pancakes 🥞

This no code tool hit $650K ARR

No code tools are a hot product. They’re convenient and make it possible for people without technical knowledge to build amazing things.

However, how can another no code tool succeed in such a crowded space?

These founders came up with a killer strategy: Built a product for a super-specific audience and laser focused all their operations on that audience.

The product, the messaging, the marketing, everything they do is thinking about their target audience.

Key takeaway: Focus on those who will benefit from your product/service. Forget about vanity metrics, cool branding, and being featured on media outlets if that’s not going to help you reach your target audience.

Thanks for reading!

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meet the author

David Bustos

Hey there! 👋 I'm David, and if you ever got an email from Starter Story, I probably wrote it. With a background in working with startups and writing, being part of this team is kind of a perfect fit for me.

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