App and web service case studies — 2/2
App and web service cases
25–44 of 44
Gumroad: The "Failed Billion-Dollar Company" Is a Thriving $20M-a-Year Business
Creator sales platform Gumroad raised VC money, then hit a growth wall and laid off 75% of its staff. Its founder publicly wrote about the "failure to build a billion-dollar company." Yet Gumroad has since gone on to survive as a highly profitable, roughly $20M-a-year business — with zero full-time employees, running entirely on contractors working 20–35 hours a week.
Stella: MVP in 2 Days, $350K/Month in 2 Months — an AI App Built by a Solo Creator With 4 Million Followers
AI visualization app Stella hit $300K/month (about ¥45M) two months after launch and $350–360K by interview time, from a 2-day MVP. 12,000 paying customers and 200,000+ downloads. Building a distribution network of 1.2M on Instagram and 2.8M on TikTok before the product mattered.
Earlyname: Six Rounds of Counteroffers That Turned a $4,500 Bid Into $10,500 — the Complete Record of Selling Small
Ben Stokes built Earlyname in three weeks, ran it for six months at $350/month in subscription revenue, and sold it on MicroAcquire for $10,500 — 30x monthly revenue. He published the entire negotiation, including all six rounds of emails that moved the buyer's opening bid of $4,500 up to $10,500.
¥50,000 a Month, Five Years After the First Release. An Indie App's "Quietly Effective Tactics" — and the Ones That Didn't Work
A case of an indie-developed app reaching ¥50,000 a month — five years after the first release, about two years after monetization began. Funnel improvements and the Apple Small Business Program worked; defaulting to the annual plan and A/B testing did not. The record discloses which tactics succeeded and which failed.
Allobee: When Funding Dried Up in 2022, a $500K-Revenue Business Found Its Buyer Through One Mass Email to Its Network
Allobee, a curated marketplace for women freelancers, was acqui-hired by The Riveter at the end of 2022 with over $500K in annual revenue, $500K raised, and a 30,000-person email list. The turning point was summer 2022, when fundraising stalled, and a mass email to the founder's personal network.
Peing: Built in 6 Hours, 200M Monthly PV in One Month — Sold at the Breaking Point of Virality
Peing, an anonymous Q&A service built in 6 hours by 26-year-old indie developer Seseri, hit 400,000 daily PV on day 5 and a 200M monthly PV pace within a month. Overwhelmed by server load and the limits of solo operation, it was sold to Jiraffe just one month after launch (price undisclosed).
¥4.61 Million a Year, Five Years After Starting to Learn Programming. The Full Three-Year P&L and Playbook of an Indie Education App
An education web/smartphone app that began as a homemade tool to ease cram-school work grew from ¥120,000 (FY2023) to ¥1.47 million (FY2024) to ¥4.61 million in revenue (¥3.91 million profit) in FY2025. The developer discloses what drove each year's growth. Fully independent as of March 2025.
MENTA, Shingo Irie's 30th Indie Project: From ¥1.4M Monthly Revenue to a Share Transfer to Lancers — the Full Story
Online mentoring service MENTA was Shingo Irie's 30th indie project. From ¥90,000 in gross transactions on day one, through a pivot to programming-only, it grew to ¥9M in monthly gross transactions and ¥1.4M in revenue. Launched June 2018, it was transferred to Lancers via share transfer in October 2020.
Zenn: A Solo-Built Dev Community Transferred to Classmethod 4.5 Months After Launch
Nine days after launch, the solo-built Zenn published "Zenn needs help," fielded offers from more than 20 companies, and was transferred to Classmethod 4.5 months after going live. The decision-making process of a case where "growth was too fast for one person to handle" is fully public.
From 30 yen in revenue to 8 years later: how running 3 apps in parallel got an indie developer to 200,000 yen a month
Indie development the author started in 2017 earned nothing for five straight years, then 30 yen in year six, 1,000 yen in year seven, 40,000 yen in year eight, and 200,000 yen in year nine. The turning point came the year after shutting down a large-scale service he spent a full year building in 2022, when he set five rules and rebuilt.
A one-time-purchase 2,000-yen iOS app "MT" hit 5 figures in its launch month, 100,000+ yen cumulative in 3 months
A gadget blogger with an engineering day job built "MT," a one-time-purchase 2,000-yen terminal app. It hit 5 figures in revenue in its launch month, and over 100,000 yen cumulative after 3 months. The turning point was "the person writing the review became the person who built the thing being reviewed."
13 games, 700 yen total. Four years to reach the first 8,000-yen payout
A 38-year-old with no prior experience learned Unity and released 13 games over about four years — yet cumulative revenue sat around 700 yen. The turning point came in July 2024, when banner ads were added to his second RPG. 100–200 yen a day for two months finally cleared Google Play's 8,000-yen payout threshold.
Habits Garden: $600/Month, 8,500 Users — the Record of Marc Lou’s Habit App That Never Broke Out
The habit tracker Habits Garden earns $600/month (about ¥90,000) with 8,500 signups. Killing the free plan just before launch raised the paid conversion rate, but developer Marc Lou himself summed it up as "avoid vitamin products."
Microns: TTM Revenue $21,855, Sold in 30 Days — Checking the “$50K Deal” Against Its Multiple
The PDF signing app eSign sold on the micro-M&A marketplace Microns. TTM revenue was $21,855, with 70 paying customers, sold just 30 days after listing. This piece checks the pricing against multiples on similar listings from the same period.
Australian investing app Goodments sold for AU$1.5M, on 12,700 users averaging age 24
Goodments, an Australian investing app that lets users pick stocks by sustainability, was acquired by Douugh in April 2021 in an all-stock deal worth AU$1.5M, valued for a customer base averaging 24 years old and evenly split by gender.
KRIT: A $1M/Year, 6-Person Dev Agency Gets Bought by a 4-Year Client
The dev agency KRIT started with $16,000 from a university accelerator, refocused on seed-to-Series-A security companies as clients, and grew to $1M/year in revenue. In June 2022 it was acquired by a four-year client, GreyNoise Intelligence.
Walica: From 50 Users a Day to 300,000 a Month, on Two Hours Every Weekend for 4.5 Years
A bill-splitting calculator, "Walica," built by two second-year colleagues out of college, saw fewer than 50 daily users for its first full year after launch. Growth began once it started ranking in search. By March 2023 it hit 300,000 monthly users, having started with an annual operating cost of about 1,000 yen for a domain.
Quit Betting on One App, Went From $200 to $10,000/Month: A Side-Hustle iOS Developer Who Shipped 28 Apps in 8 Months
Max, a full-time iOS engineer, abandoned his strategy of building one perfect app and instead shipped 28 apps in 8 months. Revenue went from $200/month to $10,000/month (about ¥1.5M). The top 4 apps each earn about $1,500, and tool costs run $285–295/month.
First revenue: 22 yen. One year and three months rebuilding 5 apps to reach 10,000 yen a month
A musical-instrument-store review site launched in October 2019 fizzled. Moving to Flutter, the developer released 5 apps, but ad revenue stalled at 22 yen on the first day. Right after implementing in-app purchases at the end of 2020, revenue reached 10,000 yen a month.
Anniversary app "365-Day Anniversary" hit 10,000 yen a month, two months after launching a subscription
The anniversary-management app "365-Day Anniversary" reached 10,000 yen in monthly revenue two months after its subscription feature launched. The turning point was a design decision that didn't remove ads but instead made them always visible — and repurposed those same ads as the reason to buy the paid plan.