Story Debrief
What 125 founders actually recommend.
We processed 129 Starter Story founder interviews and grouped repeated advice into 19 verdict categories with 535 total mentions. Open any verdict to see all supporting clips and timestamps.
Showing 19 of 19 verdict categories • 535 of 535 mentions
9 Things That Make Me $1.8M/Year• $1.8M/Year
“in 2024 it doesn't matter what product you build it doesn't matter how good your product is it is about the distribution of your product”
How I Built a $13K/Month SaaS• $13K/Month
“he grew it using one formula, the Reddit and SEO playbook”
How I Built It: $17K/Month Open Source SaaS• $17K/Month
“you can start to see a lot of blog post around what you are building so I see tons of SEO just from people writing about how to use posties”
How We Built a $10K/mo SaaS• $10K/mo
“Get paid before building anything. We made $500 before we wrote a single line of code.”
The Underdog: From $10/hr to $1.5M/Year• $10
“why don't you just try to sell it before you make it I listened to him I did exactly what he told me I sent some cold emails”
From Zero to $42K/Month in 90 Days with AI• $42K/Month
“he didn't even build the product until he”
The Underdog: From Dead Broke to $30,000,000• $30,000,000
“Focus instead of making it perfect on getting it to customers and then talking to as many of those customers as you possibly can about how to make it...”
How I Built It: $20K/Month Chrome Extension• $20K/Month
“launched my first extension within like two or three days”
How I Built It: $37K/Month Notion App• $37K/Month
“the first thing would definitely be launch as soon as you as you can”
How I Built It: $16K/Month Micro-SaaS• $16K/Month
“he wasn't trying to build a product for everyone”
He Built A $2.5M/Year Business In 2 Years• $2.5M/Year
“I think the wrong approach is go I want to do a producti design agency cuz I've seen other ones be successful but I don't know anybody who would buy...”
How I Built a $4M Business (Simple Strategy)• $4M
“we sell pop-ups to e-commerce brands because of repositioning our company by reading one very specific book. We went from zero dollars in revenue to...”
He Built A $2.5M/Year Business In 2 Years• $2.5M/Year
“carving your own little niche in any product service”
How I Built a $4M Business (Simple Strategy)• $4M
“we sell pop-ups to e-commerce brands because of repositioning our company by reading one very specific book. We went from zero dollars in revenue to...”
How I Built It: $16K/Month Micro-SaaS• $16K/Month
“he wasn't trying to build a product for everyone. He picked a specific niche and solved a real problem”
He Made $10M with 3 iPhone Apps• $10M
“I taught myself to code with chat GPT and my apps have made over $10 million to date”
I vibe coded a $20K/month mobile app in 14 days• $20K/month
“I built my latest app in less than 2 weeks, 100% with AI”
I vibe coded a $12K/month mobile app (Stoppr Breakdown)• $12K/month
“he vibecoded this entire thing in a couple weeks. That is the power of building with AI. You can have an idea in your head and turn it into a working...”
How he makes $250K per month from a simple app (Letterly Breakdown)• $250K
“how every feature you add to your app is actually killing your sales”
I Made $2.5M Selling A Digital Product• $2.5M
“had this feeling that I could make the perfect video and put it out so I spent like weeks working on it and then never ended up publishing it I have...”
The Underdog: From $10/hr to $1.5M/Year• $10
“going to build the next brilliant idea and you cannot even know what I'm working on because it's a brilliant idea right and I realized after 365 days...”
How I Made $65K in 3 Days• $65K
“free users don't actually validate the your product. They will just consume it and if something doesn't work, they will just ghost you.”
How We Built a $10K/mo SaaS• $10K/mo
“Charge early on. Don't be afraid to charge because charging creates urgency and commitment not only from you but also your customer. Go high ticket”
My app failed, then I changed one thing, and made $80K• $80K
“how you can price your first product so you can make money on day one”
My Apps Failed Until I Discovered This Playbook ($35K/month apps)• $35K/month
“I've actually spent the five first year of my professional life developing a SAS that literally no one ever used.”
My mobile app made $800K in 365 days• $800K
“building without showing to user what we had and it always failed. This one I really just wanted to be sure that we could market it and it kind of just...”
The Underdog: From $10/hr to $1.5M/Year• $10
“I spent a year working on this app I was telling people I'm going to make it I build this identity for one year of this guy who is”
He Built A $600,000 One Person Business (with video editing)• $600,000
“keeping it simple like it's just really cold Outreach and then the organic content reaching out to people for the viewers who don't know a lot about...”
He Turned $500 Into $10M• $500
“we went deep into a few different channels we originally started with outbound email marketing which is one-to-one emails called outreaches and then...”
I Make $1M/Year As An Introvert• $1M/Year
“warm dmms and getting the inbound leads and it compounds very fast like 100 DMS 200 DMS a day two to three tweets a day including like a thread and...”
I Built 4 SaaS Apps to $100K MRR: Here's My Exact Playbook• $100K
“for each software growth is pretty much about one or two acquisition channels. Those two acquisition channels, I'm going all in on them”
I Found a Business for Sale and Rebuilt It Into $20K/Month• $20K/Month
“they were only getting their customers through SEO. I thought this is the product for me. I'm going to do this exact same thing”
How I built my first SaaS without an audience ($25K/month)• $25K/month
“I also realized that I had zero audience and zero audience means zero distribution. So even if I did build the best tool out there no one's going to”
My 2 apps made $1.5M• $1.5M
“If you don't find a way to tell people about your product, then you might as well not even build a product”
9 Things That Make Me $1.8M/Year• $1.8M/Year
“it doesn't matter how good your product is it is about the distribution of your product”
He Makes $125,000/year As A Niche YouTuber• $125,000/year
“I want to have an Engaged audience and engaged community and all those 1.5 million people watch the video and never come back like what's the point I...”
The Underdog: He Turned His Last $4,000 Into $48M• $4,000
“all of these phone calls and customer conversations created a community of super fans customers that would buy from them forever”
How I Built It: $17K/Month Open Source SaaS• $17K/Month
“We have a very high churn that we're trying to drop right now on 19%. We're getting 3,830 trials since August 20 uh 25. trial to conversion rate 21%”
How I Built a $12K/Month Micro-SaaS• $12K/Month
“Why chasing views and impressions is a complete waste of time”
The Underdog: From $10/hr to $1.5M/Year• $10
“would never make money everything crumbled like all my oneyear arrogance belief fell apart and that's the moment where I stopped working on my app”
I sold my company
“The goal was never just money. It was to build something bigger than myself, something real, something that didn't depend entirely on me”
I Make $150K/Month From 20 Apps• $150K/Month
“Don't spread yourself too thin by launching five at once”
I Built 4 SaaS Apps to $100K MRR: Here's My Exact Playbook• $100K
“for each software growth is pretty much about one or two acquisition channels. Those two acquisition channels, I'm going all in on them”
I Built a $1M SaaS Using YouTube• $1M
“I created a bunch of YouTube channels. Vasco SEO tips, Tim SEO guru, SEO news, whatever. I had all these channels we owned. And so then I had to find...”
Our simple app made $100K in 90 days• $100K
“just try it by yourself and also don't over complicate it”
I flipped 4 apps and made $500,000• $500,000
“What people normally get wrong is I'll say two main things. First one is that they make their apps way too complicated”
My Side Project Makes $15K/Month (Quit My 9-5)• $15K/Month
“I over complicated it and it didn't go anywhere”
How I Finally Built a $10K/Month SaaS (30 Failures)• $10K/Month
“I often see people launching a project and giving up after a week or two because they haven't had any registrations or sales and so on”
My Coding Game Makes $1M Per Month• $1M
“The biggest the biggest mistake is not taking action early, not starting a side project”
9 Things That Make Me $1.8M/Year• $1.8M/Year
“don't give up on the first try either keep trying and eventually you'll get your first customer”
How I Built It: $20K/Month Chrome Extension• $20K/Month
“for the first 9 months or so the extension was completely free”
I Built 3 SaaS Apps to $200K MRR: Here's My Exact Playbook• $200K
“Poop your prices up a little bit and offer one last private LTD”
My app failed, then I changed one thing, and made $80K• $80K
“the pricing of the actual product actually started with something really small. I started off with $29 when I was under 100 users”
I Built A $1M App In 5 Hours• $1M
“yeah so you built this as a solo developer as a solo preneur tell me what that experience was like yeah SOLO has a lot of pros and a lot of cons one of...”
My Coding Game Makes $1M Per Month• $1M
“I'm going to delegate everything. I'm going to hire that salesperson, hire that marketer, hire that developer. But omitting the hard skills is a big...”
I Make $1M/Year With One Website• $1M/Year
“what does the team look like and what were some of like the first hires you made or some of the big hires you made for the business”