From $0 to $553k MRR: A Micro-Studio Case Study

One startup per month for 12 months.

Think you could do it?

Many of you know that I am super passionate about Startup Studios (build startups in parallel leveraging shared resources and repeatable playbooks).

Recently, I’ve been exploring the idea of micro-studios.

Micro-Studios

A few weeks ago, I wrote a “blueprint” on how to start and succeed with Micro-Studios.

Here are the key takeaways:

• Startup Studios/ Venture Studios are meant to build venture scale companies — meaning their goal is to create startups that VC’s are interested in funding with the ultimate ambition of exiting for millions.
• Micro-Studios are meant to build products that can generate cash flow and sell for a few thousand dollars.
• The Micro-Studio blueprint: choose a niche, establish one brand (holding company), build one at a time (quickly kill ideas that don’t validate), partner with other innovators to fill your skill gaps (example: you’re technical — find a marketing partner)

Case Study

There are thousands of Indie Hackers building Micro-Studios that don’t even know they’re doing it.

As I’ve explored this concept I’ve discovered the many examples of such individuals. Today I’m going to break down one such story.

Jon Yongfook

In 2013, Jon was a digital nomad. He built and launched a SaaS startup that became successful enough to sustain his lifestyle for a while.

In 2016, he re-joined the corporate world as Head of Digital Product & Design at a company called Aviva.

In 2018, Jon wrote this blog article explaining his departure from Aviva and return to the startup world.

“I want to go into creative mode for a while. I miss coding and building new things, and letting my imagination run wild. I have passion projects I want to work on, blog posts I want to write. I’m going to spend the next couple of months traveling and creating.”

This is where he embarks on the Micro-Studio journey.

The 12 startups in 12 months challenge

Jon recognized that his “product shipping muscle” was weak since spending the prior 2.5 years in a full time corporate role.

The goal: rebuild the product shipping muscle and reignite creativity by launching 12 startups in 12 months.

His 5 reasons for doing so?

1. You’re forced to ship Jon explains how he was constantly getting new projects to the 50% mark and giving up or losing interest. The pressure of getting a new product out the door every 30 days gave him a tangible and challenging deadline to adhere to.
2. You increase the probability of success Just as traditional Startup Studios sort through many ideas, test them during the validation phase, and kill most of them — so too do Micro-Studio entrepreneurs. Experimenting with many ideas is how you learn, iterate, and improve.
3. You give your products time to breathe “By the time you’re working on your 5th startup, the 1st one may be gaining traction or you may have collected sufficient feedback from customers to evolve and improve it.” — Jon Yongfook (blog link)
4. You can afford to take risks Startup founders are known to be risk-takers but with the pressure to produce a major hit, it’s hard to go all in and take a risk on some of the crazy ideas they have. Knowing that in 30 days you'll launch a new product takes that pressure off and allows creativity to flow.
5. It’s fun! We’re founders — we love coming up with new ideas and building cool things. Through this 12 startup challenge, Jon explains how spending a year experimenting and building is like getting a hands-on MBA. Rapid creation helps hone all the skills you need to succeed as an entrepreneur.

“The 12 startups challenge lets you iterate through the value chain in one market or experiment with different markets.” — Jon Yongfook (blog link)

Jon probably doesn't think of his 12 startups in 12 months journey as the start of a Micro-Studio, but I do.

He’s building and shipping multiple products under one umbrella — his personal brand — and zeroing in on the ones that gain traction (wait until you see what happens in month 7 😉).

Jon’s Micro-Studio Portfolio:

Product 1 — Zipsell

Started: 1st September 2018Launched: 29th September 2018Description: a free, open source platform for selling digital downloads.Read more: launch post

Product 2 — Promomatic

Started: 1st October 2018 Launched: 31st October 2018 Description: easily create beautiful app store assets. Read more: launch post Update: acquired in 2019 🎉

Product 3 —Montage

Started: 1st November 2018 Launched: 30th November 2018 Description: design apps with pre-built components. Read more: launch post Update: acquired in 2019 🎉

Product 4 —Tech Jobs Asia

Started: 1st December 2018 Launched: 28th December 2018 Description: a job board of Asia’s best tech jobs. Read more: launch post Update: product is now shut down.

Product 5 —Hyperjump

Started: 1st January 2019 Launched: 30th January 2019 Description: SaaS for financial institutions. Read more: launch post Update: product is now shut down

Product 6 — Tropic

Started: 1st February 2019 Launched: 28th February 2019 Description: overview of your remote team timezones. Read more: launch post Update: product is now shut down.

Product 7 —Talkshow

Started: 1st March 2019 Launched: 3rd April 2019 Description: video discussion board for remote teams. Update: product is now shut down.

While I encourage Micro-Studio founders to hone in on one niche or technology vertical (to make learning iterative and creation + launching easier each time) this experiment helped Jon explore a variety of industries, technologies, and passion areas.

So, why did he stop after month 7?

The Right Idea 💡

September 2019 ~ December 2019

Jon started to notice the traction for one of his products — then called Previewmojo —was interestingly positive.

According to this article he wrote on getting to $10k MRR, the response for Previewmojo was “lukewarm” but he followed his intuition and north star to keep building and iterating.

January — February 2020

After some hard-earned lessons about pricing, Jon rebranded Previewmojo to Bannerbear. He admits that the rebrand didn’t help much with sales but he was able to figure out the problem: he had niched down too far.

Recognizing that one of the features (API) was more valuable than the rest he zoomed in on that.

May 2020 ~ January 2021

Over the next 6 months, he worked on product and marketing. By October Bannerbear was running ~$6k MRR.

After months of looking at usage trends to understand what “job to be done” customers were “hiring” Bannerbear for, Jon repositioned Bannerbear by updating the website and sales material to focus on the 2 jobs the product was best at: automating and scaling marketing.

By January of 2021, Bannerbear hit a major milestone: $10k MRR!

Onward and Upward

While the journey from $0-$10k MRR took about a year, the journey from $10k-$20k MRR only took 6 months. I’m sure there are a lot of factors at play here but the strength of his product shipping muscle was surely one.

According to some sources, Bannerbear now pulls in $553k+ ARR.

Talk about a win!

Lessons For Aspiring Micro Studio Founders

From this case study we learned a some key lessons:

• Giving yourself a deadline for each project is critical to success
• Don’t work on more than one project at once
• Don’t shut down projects until they’re at least 3 months old — some will gain surprising traction down the road
• Document your progress (as Jon has done here) and build in public as Jon has done and continues to do on Twitter
• The most important thing to do is ship products. As Jon demonstrated, that muscle needs to be strengthened and the more you do it the better, faster, and cheaper each iteration becomes (which is the point of a Studio approach — economies of scale)
• When a product starts gaining momentum, pay attention. Jon stopped after month 7 because he found something that seemed to be working. It is okay to focus all of your attention on one thing to get it off the ground when you feel the traction potential.
• The above point might sound counter-intuitive because you’re supposed to be building a portfolio of products (not a singular startup) but you are only one person, eventually you will get back to building new products but the goal is to find success, build momentum, and sell — so taking the time to focus on one product that works is the right move.

I hope this case study has helped put Micro-Studios into perspective and made the process more tangible. It’s all about experimenting with different ideas (specifically ones you already know how to build) and trying them out under one umbrella (typically your personal brand).

There are many success stories of founders just like Jon who have done this and hit it big with a product that was initially just one of many experiments.

You can learn more about Jon here and be sure to follow him on Twitter!

If you’re interested in Startup Studios or Micro-Studios, follow me on LinkedIn and subscribe to the weekly Startup Studio newsletter!