Chris → Startups.fyi

This week, in startups fyi newsletter: 💼 He built a tool for his own agency. It’s now a $3M ARR business. Lav Crnobrnja is the founder of Vacation Tracker, a leave management app that started as an internal fix at his software agency. Here's how: dub.sh/20261027startupsfyi

This week, in startups fyi newsletter: 📈 How a $150/month app became a $10K/month business Piotr Obidowski is the developer behind Visualizee, an AI tool that turns an architect’s sketch into a realistic render in seconds. Here's how he did it: dub.sh/20261027startupsfyi

This week, in startups fyi newsletter: 🎵 TemPolor ($10,000 MRR): Create AI-powered, royalty-free music for your videos. Describe the mood and the scene, and it generates a track you can customize to fit the story. dub.sh/20261027startupsfyi

This week, in startups fyi newsletter: 🏛️ Northstar Toolkit ($300 to $1,000 MRR): Write stronger grant applications faster with this AI toolkit for nonprofits. It handles funder research, organizational knowledge, and structured grant drafting so you can compete for bigger funding. dub.sh/20261027startupsfyi

This week, in startups fyi newsletter: 🔓 OpenAlternative ($500 MRR): Discover free, open-source alternatives to popular paid software like ChatGPT, Elevenlabs and many more dub.sh/20261027startupsfyi

This week, in startups fyi newsletter: 💼 Joby.ai ($300 MRR): Discover this AI-powered search engine for jobs all over the world. dub.sh/20261027startupsfyi

🌳 TreeVed (Pre-revenue): Here is a social platform for organizing, sharing, and discovering links based on what you read and watch. It makes files easier to save, explore, and share. dub.sh/20261027startupsfyi

How GoHenry founder built a $250M app Louise Hill is the woman behind GoHenry, the kids’ money app valued at $250M. GoHenry fixes a simple problem you wouldn’t guess until someone tells you. The idea came when Louise opened her credit card statement and found her children had quietly spent their allowance on iTunes before ever seeing the cash. So she thought, why not build a tool that gives parents a prepaid card for their kids, lets them set limits on it, and rewards the kids for doing chores? That’s exactly what GoHenry became, and it’s now serving over 2 million families. [link to story below] Mike’s 5 SaaS apps make $200K/month combined Starter Story just interviewed Mike, a founder from Australia running five SaaS apps doing $200K/month between them. Fully bootstrapped, no VC, no exits. His whole thesis: “I like to build ideas that can’t fail.” Every app he builds follows a 10-step playbook and 5 rules he never breaks, which is why he can keep launching new ones without starting from scratch. [link to story below] He built a $500K ARR tool with only $35 a month in startup costs, no code David built Formula Bot during six weeks of paternity leave in 2022. He couldn’t code, so he used Bubble and YouTube tutorials. The total startup cost was $25 a month for Bubble and $10 for a domain. He posted it in the Excel subreddit, and immediately it took off right before ChatGPT made AI tools explode, which allowed him quit his job once when it out-earned his salary. dub.sh/20261020startupsfyi

💬 Chatbit ($1,000 MRR): Train a GPT chatbot on your data, no code AI chatbot for your website, business or project. dub.sh/20261020startupsfyi

🚀 Momentum ($100 MRR): Launch unlimited websites, landing pages, content directories, blogs and interactive apps in seconds and get users in minutes with this no-code builder. dub.sh/20261020startupsfyi

🙏 Prayer Generator (Pre-revenue): Generate thoughtful personalized prayers instantly for any occasion with this AI-powered prayer generator. dub.sh/20261020startupsfyi

🎨 Try OC Maker ($300/month): Create your original character idea that you’ve always imagined with this free AI-powered original character maker. dub.sh/20261020startupsfyi

⚙️ pylo ($10,000 MRR): Ship your product not your backend. Build Database, GraphQL APIs, forms, flows, analytics, SDKs, and MCP all in one place. dub.sh/20261020startupsfyi

This founder had a $1M job offer on the table and turned it down to build his own idea. Three years later it’s a $22M business. The interesting part isn’t the money, it’s the decision. He walked away from guaranteed income for something nobody had proven, and the story breaks down how he thought about that risk. Worth a read if you’re weighing the safe option against the thing you actually want to build. dub.sh/20261013startupsfyi

Massive congrats to Danny on Bokksu, his Japanese snack subscription box. He failed three startup ideas before this one, then started Bokksu with just 20 subscribers, three suitcases of snacks, and his mom packing orders in the living room. Today it’s one of the biggest snack subscriptions in the world. What makes this worth your time: three failures didn’t stop him, and the thing that finally worked was the simplest, smallest version of an idea he could test in a week. If you’ve been sitting on a plan waiting until it’s “ready,” this is the story to read. dub.sh/20261013startupsfyi

🩺 Twofold Health ($4,000 MRR): Skip the late-night paperwork with this AI scribe. It listens to a clinical session and writes the notes, so therapists can see more patients and still go home on time. dub.sh/20261013startupsfyi

🎬 VideoDubber ($1,000 MRR): Translate your videos into any language with this tool. Realistic AI voices, lip-sync, and unlimited free edits, at a fraction of what ElevenLabs charges. dub.sh/20261013startupsfyi

🧹 CleanSmartLabs (Pre-revenue): Fix your messy CRM in one pass with this tool. It removes duplicates, corrects mistakes, and puts every record in order across Salesforce and HubSpot. dub.sh/20261013startupsfyi