3 Successful SaaS Making $100K / Month That Started From Nothing

When people talk about building a six-figure SaaS company, there’s one thing they often miss:

You don’t build a six-figure SaaS — you grow a six-figure SaaS!

That’s why we’re sharing three real-life examples of successful SaaS businesses — all of which started from nothing and grew into highly profitable ventures making over $100,000 a month.

Let’s dive in.

1. Typefully

First up, Typefully, a social media writing and scheduling tool primarily focused on X (formerly Twitter) that currently makes over $113,000 per month by offering:

• A clean writing interface for a variety of social media platforms
• Scheduling and analytics tools
• AI text generation for better posts
• Automated blog post creation

Unlike typical SaaS products that lure users with free trials, Typefully requires users to sign in with their X account before even trying the tool.

When it first launched in 2020, Typefully was a simple tool to write and schedule tweets, with a very minimalist interface — a minimum viable product (MVP) done right.

Upon launching, they immediately received 16,000 page visits and 1,432 sign-ups, all by leveraging these software marketing tactics: 

• Getting featured on Hacker News and Product Hunt
• Using existing X and Mailbrew audiences (Mailbrew was their previous SaaS)
• Writing targeted blogs and tweets

Slowly but surely, through consistent iterative improvements, Typefully evolved from from a basic tool for X to a robust social media posting platform.

From a clean tweet composer to a comprehensive social media powerhouse, Typefully is a textbook example of growing a successful SaaS — proving that iteration and audience leverage are powerful growth strategies.

2. EmailOctopus

Next, let’s look at EmailOctopus, currently pulling in $250,000 per month thanks to having eight tentacles that offer a complete email marketing solution with: 

• GDPR-compliant mailing lists
• Drag-and-drop newsletter builder
• Audience segmentation
• Email automation and drip campaigns
• Landing pages and sign-up forms

That reads like any email marketing tool–but two things make EmailOctopus stand out:

1. Transparent Savings Calculator

Visitors can estimate how much cheaper EmailOctopus is compared to competitors like Mailchimp — a direct and effective way to win price-sensitive customers.

2. Straightforward Pricing

EmailOctopus has two plans–that’s it:

• Free up to 10,000 emails per month
• Paid with an easily understood sliding scale

In contrast, other email tools often complicate pricing with multiple tiers and hidden upsells. Clarity wins.

EmailOctopus did the classic SaaS growth strategy of launching for free to gain users fast.

After the first 1,000 users, they introduced budget friendly paid plans, reaching $10K MRR in 6 months. Soon, they realized competing on price was attracting low quality users and raised prices to great success.

While they would use paid ads, affiliate marketing, and free templates to scale, their first year involved zero paid ads—all growth was organic via Reddit, Quora, GitHub.

As of now, they’re aiming for $5 million in annual revenue. From free tool to SaaS giant, EmailOctopus is a great model for those looking to bootstrap a successful SaaS with minimal upfront investment.

3. Uplead

Finally, let’s talk about Uplead, a B2B prospecting and lead generation tool that blazed to $400K MRR in just four years, and as of 2024, an estimated $15 million annually! 

So what does Uplead do to make so much money?

• Data scraping to help users find verified business leads
• Access to accurate contact data (emails, phone numbers, etc.)
• Integrations with CRM tools

Like the other SaaS businesses in our list, Uplead didn’t start with millions in venture capital or super secret alien technology. 

Instead, it focused on data quality over quantity as a USP to beat existing (and far ore established) competitors.

• Freemium strategy early on to attract users
• Used content marketing and SEO to rank for lead generation keywords
• Co-founders were transparent in AMA sessions and interviews, sharing what worked (and what didn’t) — building trust and community

As they found product-market fit and gained traction ,Uplead scaled as they refined their database and added integrations.

What Can We Learn from Successful SaaS?

While there are always exceptions, most successful SaaS businesses all do the following:

1. Start with an MVP — Launch something simple that works, then iterate based on real user feedback.
2. Leverage an existing audience or platform — Whether it’s a Twitter following, Reddit, or Product Hunt, having an audience at launch is critical.
3. Simple, clear pricing — Confused users don’t buy.
4. Content-first growth — All three used content marketing as a key part of their growth engine.
5. Iterate constantly — SaaS is a marathon, not a sprint. They kept improving based on user needs.

Will YOU Build a Successful SaaS?

Now you’ve seen these three SaaS companies, you’re left with three options:

1. Steal these SaaS ideas wholesale.
2. Create your own variation, inspired by what works.
3. Keep reading SaaS idea posts, waiting for that perfect idea

We hope you can tell we’re joking about option three.

Success won’t come without action: Few people start, and even fewer finish. 

Beyond a profitable SaaS idea, it’s all about execution, consistency, and learning how to build a software product using a systematic and proven process.

Happy grinding!

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