Data
As of 2026-09-01 · 371 cases
This page aggregates the numbers from every case study published on Small Start. The sample contains only businesses whose figures were disclosed by the operator or reported by the press — no estimates. It recomputes automatically as cases are added.
- Cases
- 371
- Operating
- 197
- Sold
- 163
- Shut down
- 11
- Source links
- 494
- Founder-disclosed
- 93%
Japan: 140United States: 116Other: 115
Monthly revenue distribution
Only cases with a disclosed monthly revenue figure. Includes both operating and sold businesses; for the latter, revenue at the time of sale.
- Disclosed
- n=227
- Bottom 25%
- ¥342K
- Median
- ¥1.6M
- Top 25%
- ¥9.3M
- Max
- ¥250M
Median monthly revenue by business type
| Segment | Cases | Disclosed | Median | Chart |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SaaS | 124 | 85 | ¥6.8M | |
| Community | 8 | 5 | ¥5.7M | |
| Blog/Media | 59 | 28 | ¥1.8M | |
| Web service | 27 | 19 | ¥1.5M | |
| E-commerce | 21 | 16 | ¥775K | |
| Other | 18 | 11 | ¥748K | |
| Social account | 4 | 3 | ¥400K | |
| Digital products | 36 | 26 | ¥266K | |
| Offline | 36 | 7 | ¥250K | |
| Mobile app | 25 | 18 | ¥225K | |
| YouTube | 8 | 7 | ¥173K | |
| Affiliate site | 5 | 2 | Too few (< 3) |
Median monthly revenue by team structure
| Segment | Cases | Disclosed | Median | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company | 20 | 12 | ¥48.1M | ¥250M |
| Small team | 118 | 60 | ¥7M | ¥37.5M |
| Solo | 170 | 110 | ¥1.4M | ¥175M |
| Side project | 53 | 36 | ¥151K | ¥6.1M |
Exit price distribution
Only exits with a disclosed price. Deals published as a range, or not published at all, are excluded from the distribution. Of 163 exits, 40 disclosed a price. 42 published only a range and 81 disclosed nothing.
- Disclosed
- n=40
- Bottom 25%
- ¥3.1M
- Median
- ¥37.5M
- Top 25%
- ¥870M
- Max
- ¥12B
How the businesses were sold
| Segment | Count | Share | Chart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct deal | 106 | 65% | |
| Batonz | 21 | 13% | |
| Other | 14 | 9% | |
| TRANBI | 8 | 5% | |
| Rakko M&A | 8 | 5% | |
| Acquire.com | 5 | 3% |
Acquisition channels by frequency
A case can use several channels, so the total exceeds the number of cases.
How to read these numbers
- Monthly revenue
- Gross monthly sales before costs — not profit. Each case lists its revenue model (subscription, ads, physical goods, etc.).
- Monthly profit
- What is left after costs. Far fewer operators disclose it, so the sample is much smaller than for revenue.
- Exit price
- The publicly disclosed consideration for the business. Treatment of fees, tax and earn-outs varies by source, so each article states the terms.
- Multiple
- Sale price ÷ monthly profit — the convention used in Japanese small-site M&A. Not the same as a multiple of annual revenue.
- Median
- The middle value. Averages here would be dominated by a handful of very large deals, so medians are used throughout.
- n
- The number of cases with a usable figure. Published cases without a disclosed number do not count toward n.
- Founder / Reported
- Source type. "Founder" means the operator published it themselves; "Reported" means a news or trade outlet did. Every article labels its sources.
- Currency
- Non-JPY figures are converted at roughly ¥150 per USD, so amounts differ from the exact figure at the time.
Method and limitations
- The sample is the set of cases we publish, not the population of small businesses. Operators who publish numbers skew toward those doing well, so the distribution is biased upward (survivorship bias).
- By editorial rule we exclude exits at or below ¥1M and one-off, non-recurring revenue, which cuts off the bottom of the distribution.
- Segments with fewer than 3 figures do not get a median.
- Everything is computed from article frontmatter. No number is invented on this page; the underlying figure and its source sit on each case page.
Columns that dig into this data
Anatomy of 11 Closures — Platforms and "Profitable but Unsustainable" Kill More Small Businesses Than Running Out of Money
Of our published cases, 11 carry status: closed. Classify the causes of death and the running-out-of-money type is a minority: three closures trace to platforms and terms-of-service, and three businesses were folded while profitable or even high-earning. Operating spans run from 4 months to 10 years. The scarcity of failure cases is itself survivorship bias, and that is part of the analysis.
How True Is "My Only Employees Are AI"? 26 Solo-and-Side AI Businesses, Median ¥1.5M/Month
We fact-checked the "one-person company staffed by AI" narrative against our archive. Across 26 solo or side-project AI businesses, the 20 with disclosed revenue have a median of ¥1.5M a month — higher than the all-solo median (~¥900K), but the same order of magnitude. What AI replaces is development and support; distribution and judgment remain human work.
Median Monthly Revenue: ¥250K in Japan, ¥4.5M Overseas — Where Does the 18x Gap Come From?
Splitting our 346 published cases into 135 Japanese and 211 overseas, the median monthly revenue of operating businesses is ¥250K vs ¥4.5M — 18x — and median sale prices are ¥2M vs ¥130M, 65x apart. But reading this as a gap in ability is premature: the two distributions are missing different halves.
Median Monthly Revenue by Acquisition Channel — Word of Mouth ¥7.5M, Social ¥2.25M, Marketplaces ¥260K
We aggregated the 235 published cases that disclose monthly revenue by their main acquisition channels. The highest median belongs to word of mouth and referrals at ¥7.5M; the lowest is marketplace-driven at ¥260K — a roughly 29x spread. But this is not a ranking of channels: it should be read as the business model choosing the channel, not the other way round.
How Many Months of Revenue Does a Business Sell For? Across 20 Disclosed Deals the Median Is 25 Months — and Japan and Overseas Differ 4x
Across the 20 published deals that disclose both sale price and monthly revenue, we computed "how many months of revenue the sale was worth." The median is about 25 months; Japan's median is 7.8 months against 29.3 overseas. What moves the multiple is not the border but the repeatability of the revenue.
Where Businesses Get Sold — A Breakdown of Exit Routes Across 168 Listed Cases
Tallying the deal routes of 167 listed exits: over 60% were direct deals with no broker. Platform deals: Batonz 27, TRANBI 9, Rakko M&A 8. Buyers and pricing differ by route.
A median map across 12 business types: how far apart are monthly revenues?
Median monthly revenue varies over 50x by business type — SaaS at about ¥9 million vs. YouTube at ¥170,000 — but the gap isn't about which field "pays."
How Far Can One Person Go — The Monthly Revenue Distribution of 121 Solo and Side-Business Cases, and the Truth Behind the Ceiling
121 solo/side-business cases with disclosed revenue: median ~¥900,000/mo, max ~¥175M. The gap was labor decoupling, not hours worked.
What's a "normal" exit price? The distribution behind 168 published sale cases
Of 168 published exit cases, 37 disclosed a specific price. The median was ¥30 million, from ¥3 million at the bottom quartile to over ¥600 million at the top.