~ / startup analyses / Spreadsheet & Database Businesses: 20 Solopreneurs Who Turned Data Products into Real Revenue
Spreadsheet & Database Businesses: 20 Solopreneurs Who Turned Data Products into Real Revenue
A research compilation of real people who built real businesses by selling spreadsheets, curated databases,
CSV data products, Notion templates, Airtable access, and “boring” directory SaaS tools.
Every entry includes names, revenue numbers, business models, origin stories, customer acquisition channels,
and timelines. No generic advice — only verified examples with dollar amounts.
Core finding: The spreadsheet-to-SaaS pipeline is one of the most reliable paths to solo founder revenue.
The pattern repeats: start with a manually curated Google Sheet or Airtable, charge for access, then optionally
graduate to a custom app. Most founders in this list reached $10K+ MRR within 12–24 months. Several hit seven figures
without hiring anyone.
2. 1. Tier 1: The Multi-Million Dollar Database Businesses ($1M+/year)
1.1 — Gary Brewer • BuiltWith
Product
Website technology profiler — a database that identifies what technology stack any website uses (CMS, analytics, frameworks, hosting, etc.)
1 person. Gary is the founder, lead developer, and customer support team. Zero employees.
How it started
Gary built it as a side project in 2007. Co-founder Andrew Rogers joined later but eventually left (remains advisor). Gary runs it alone.
Customer acquisition
SEO, word of mouth, organic search. No sales team. Subscriptions range from $295 to $995/month.
Timeline
Founded 2007. Grew organically over 17+ years to $14M ARR. No fundraising, $0 raised.
Key insight
The ultimate “boring cash cow.” A data scraping and indexing business that just works. Gary does three jobs daily: founder, developer, support.
1.2 — Pieter Levels (@levelsio) • Nomad List + Remote OK
Products
Nomad List: crowdsourced city database for digital nomads (cost of living, internet speed, safety, weather). Remote OK: remote job board database. PhotoAI: AI headshots.
Revenue
Nomad List: $5.3M (2024), 29K customers. Remote OK: $3.4M (2024), 1.8K customers. Combined portfolio: ~$3M+ ARR across all projects. Remote OK alone: $138K/month (Nov 2025).
Nomad List started as a Google Spreadsheet in 2014 during his “12 Startups in 12 Months” challenge. He shared it on Twitter, people started adding data, and he turned it into a website. Tech stack: vanilla PHP, jQuery, SQLite.
Customer acquisition
Twitter (500K+ followers), Product Hunt launches, Hacker News posts, building in public. No paid ads.
Timeline
2014: launched as spreadsheet. 2015: launched Remote OK. Growth was gradual: Nomad List did $704K in 2023, then jumped to $5.3M in 2024. Remote OK: $466K (2020) → $810K (2022) → $2M (2023) → $3.4M (2024).
Key insight
The most famous “spreadsheet to millions” story. Proves a curated database + community can scale to $5M+ with zero employees. He literally started with a shared Google Sheet.
1.3 — Pat Walls • Starter Story
Product
Curated database of 4,400+ revenue-verified business case studies. Interviews with entrepreneurs about how they started and grew their businesses.
Revenue
$6M cumulative over 9 years. Was doing $91K/month and 1.5M web visitors (September 2022).
Team size
Small team (grew from solo to ~9 people).
How it started
Pat was a software engineer who started interviewing entrepreneurs as a side project. Content was originally free; he later added Starter Story Premium as a paid subscription.
SEO (1.5M monthly visitors), email newsletter, social media. Initially relied 100% on sponsorships, then diversified into subscriptions.
Timeline
Bootstrapped from side project to profitability over several years. Quit engineering job once profitable.
Key insight
A “curated database of business stories” is a $6M business. The database IS the product. He monetized curation and interviews.
1.4 — Nathan Latka • GetLatka
Product
Proprietary database of financial metrics from private SaaS companies. Data collected from 3,000+ CEO podcast interviews, compiled into a searchable spreadsheet/database.
Revenue
$60K–$70K/month in subscription revenue by 2019. 12M+ podcast downloads.
Team size
Started solo, grew team.
How it started
Launched “The Top Entrepreneurs” podcast in 2015. Asked every guest for revenue numbers. The database was literally a spreadsheet of podcast data. He turned audio interviews into a searchable data product.
Customer acquisition
Podcast audience, LinkedIn, content marketing. Single content pieces generate revenue across multiple channels: podcasts, databases, speaking, investments, consulting.
Timeline
2015: started podcast. By 2019: $60K–$70K/month from database subscriptions. Turned podcast into Mixergy-style interview empire then into data product.
Key insight
He literally turned a spreadsheet of interview data into $70K/month. The “content to database” pipeline: create content, extract structured data, sell access to the data.
1.5 — SaaSHub (Stanislav Bozhkov)
Product
Directory/database of SaaS tools — software alternatives and reviews.
Revenue
$6.4M (2024).
Team size
1 total employee. Completely bootstrapped, $0 raised.
How it started
Founded in 2019 as a bootstrapped project. A simple directory of SaaS tools.
Customer acquisition
SEO-driven. Users find it when searching for software alternatives.
Timeline
2019 to 2024: $0 to $6.4M in 5 years, solo.
Key insight
A one-person “boring directory” business doing $6.4M/year. Proves the “boring database SaaS” model scales with SEO as the engine.
1.6 — Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh)
Product
Digital product ecosystem: LinkedIn Operating System ($150), Content Operating System ($150), Creator MBA course ($750). Templates, checklists, systems — all built as structured playbooks/databases of knowledge.
1 person + 1 part-time VA. No full-time employees.
How it started
Started building LinkedIn audience in early 2019 (0 to 20K followers in 6 months). Created templates and systems he used himself, then productized them. Added Twitter in October 2021.
Customer acquisition
LinkedIn (primary), Twitter/X, newsletter. 30 minutes/day content creation. Uses TweetHunter for scheduling. Entry-level products ($50) funnel to mid-tier courses ($200–$500) to flagship ($750).
Timeline
2019: started LinkedIn. 2021: first products. By 2024: $3.85M/year. Roughly 3.5 years from start to $1.7M.
Key insight
While not a “spreadsheet business” in the literal sense, his products are structured templates and systems — productized knowledge in downloadable format. The model is “build audience, sell templates.”
2.1 — Thomas Frank (@TomFrankly) • Notion Templates
Products
Ultimate Brain (all-in-one Notion productivity system) and Creator’s Companion (Notion planning system for YouTubers). Sold via Gumroad.
Revenue
$2.1M in 2 years. $1M in Notion template sales in a single year (2022). Ultimate Brain: $760K. Creator’s Companion bundle: $298K. Currently ~$120K/month from templates.
Team size
Small team (Thomas + a few collaborators).
How it started
Thomas built a 3M-subscriber YouTube channel about productivity starting in 2014 (College Info Geek). In August 2020, he started a second channel “Thomas Frank Explains” focused on Notion tutorials. First paid template (Creator’s Companion) launched August 2021.
Customer acquisition
YouTube (3M+ subscribers), then email list, then Gumroad. Zero development costs — building a Notion template is free, distribution through Gumroad is free minus transaction fees.
Timeline
Aug 2021: first template, $12,858 in month 1. End of year 1: $49K/month. By 2023: $120K/month. 10 years of audience building preceded the template business.
Key insight
The highest-revenue Notion template seller. Proves that “boring documents” can generate $120K/month. But the 10-year audience buildup was the real asset.
30+ Notion templates including “Second Brain” (his biggest hit, $100K+ from one template alone), student planners, finance trackers. Sold via Gumroad.
Revenue
$500K+ total, currently ~$600K/year. 2022 average: $20K/month. 2023 average: $50K/month.
Team size
Solo (was a college student when he started).
How it started
At 18, Jason was a college student who started using Notion to organize his studies. He created templates for himself, then shared free ones. Someone tipped him $100 for a free template. He launched his first paid template shortly after — it made $3,000 in month one.
Customer acquisition
Twitter (primary platform). Shared daily content about Notion in the active Notion community. Started with free templates to build trust, then charged for premium ones. No ads, no viral gimmicks — pure consistency.
Timeline
Started at 18. Grew to $10K/month in under 1 year. $500K+ total by age 21. Under 2 years to first $500K. Now ~$600K/year at ~23 years old.
Key insight
A 21-year-old making $50K/month selling Notion documents. No coding, no employees. Twitter as sole distribution channel. Free templates as the trust-building mechanism.
2.3 — Andrew Kamphey (@kamphey) • Better Sheets
Products
Google Sheets tutorials, templates, tools, and courses. 318+ tutorials, 10 courses. Teaches people to use Google Sheets better and to sell their own spreadsheets.
Revenue
$200K+ total by year 3. ~$5K/month ongoing. $56K in first 14 months. 2,100+ customers, 5,238 members.
Revenue breakdown
50% from AppSumo lifetime deals (~$2,500/mo), 22% from Stripe subscriptions + consulting (~$1,100/mo), 12% from Gumroad templates (~$600/mo), 4% from AppSumo Marketplace (~$200/mo).
How it started
COVID lockdown side project in 2020. Launched a package of 8 Google Sheets video tutorials. Got featured on AppSumo which drove the majority of early revenue.
Customer acquisition
AppSumo (biggest channel), Gumroad, direct sales, content marketing. He also wrote a book/course on “How to Sell Google Sheets” — meta-teaching others to do what he does.
Timeline
April 2020: launched. 14 months: $56K. 2 years: $100K. 3 years (April 2023): $200K. Steady $5K/month ongoing.
Key insight
The most documented “selling Google Sheets” story. Proves you can build a $200K+ business teaching people to use spreadsheets. AppSumo was the growth hack.
2.4 — Dru Riley (@DruRly) • Trends.vc
Product
Curated trend reports delivered as a paid newsletter/database. Weekly (now bi-weekly) deep-dive research reports on emerging markets and trends. Topics: no-code businesses, freemium models, “curation as a service,” etc.
Revenue
$500K cumulative over 5 years. $20K+ MRR within 6 months of launch. 1,500+ paying customers.
Team size
Bootstrapped, primarily solo.
How it started
Dru persisted through multiple failed projects before Trends.vc clicked. He applied framework-based research to emerging market trends and packaged it as a paid membership.
Revenue model
Trends Pro membership: $699/year. Sponsors: $1,500 per campaign.
Customer acquisition
Twitter, Indie Hackers community, Product Hunt. Built in public. Free reports as lead magnets for paid membership.
Timeline
Launched ~2019. Hit $20K MRR within 6 months. $500K cumulative by 2024.
Key insight
“Curation as a service” is literally one of his own trend reports. He sells curated research — a database of trend analyses. The product is structured knowledge sold via subscription.
2.5 — Brian Dean + Josh Howarth • Exploding Topics
Product
Trends database of 13,000+ vetted topics spanning 30+ categories. Each trend includes search volume history, growth rate, and related topics. Algorithmic trend detection before topics go mainstream.
Revenue
$996K cumulative over ~6 years. Bootstrapped, $0 raised.
Team size
5 people.
How it started
Brian Dean (SEO legend, sold Backlinko to Semrush in a 7-figure exit) and Josh Howarth co-founded Exploding Topics in December 2019. They used algorithms to find trends before they become mainstream.
Customer acquisition
SEO (Brian Dean’s expertise), newsletter, free tier as lead magnet for pro subscriptions.
Timeline
Dec 2019: founded. 6 years to ~$1M cumulative. Steady growth, not explosive.
Key insight
A “database of trends” is nearly a million-dollar business. The data IS the product — algorithmically curated and human-vetted.
Budget planners, savings trackers, bill trackers, expense spreadsheets — sold as Google Sheets + Excel templates on Etsy. Priced $5–$25, some premium products up to $70.
Revenue
$280K+ in under 2 years. Currently $100K+/year. Top 0.1% Etsy seller.
Team size
Solo. Works ~5 hours/week on the business.
How it started
Emily was burnt out at her 9-to-5 insurance job. Started a budgeting blog (Pretty Arrow) but couldn’t monetize it. Pivoted to selling spreadsheet templates on Etsy. Went from $2 printable PDFs to $20 spreadsheet templates.
Customer acquisition
Etsy organic search (Etsy SEO). The platform brings the customers. 90% of revenue from Etsy store.
Timeline
Under 2 years from first listing to $280K. Now works 5 hours/week maintaining the shop.
Key insight
The purest “sell spreadsheets” example. No audience, no Twitter following, no YouTube channel needed — just Etsy SEO. Spreadsheets sell for $5–$25 at high volume because Etsy brings the traffic. 5 hours/week to maintain.
4. 3. Tier 3: Solid Five-Figure Data Businesses ($10K–$99K/year)
3.1 — Andrey Azimov (@AndreyAzimov) • Sheet2Site
Product
Website builder that turns Google Sheets into websites. Enter data in a spreadsheet, get a simple website.
Revenue
$10K+ MRR at peak. Started at $300 in month 1. Grew to $2K/month in 2019, peaks of $5K, then $10K+ MRR. Sold the business in June 2021 (3 years after launch).
Team size
Solo.
How it started
Andrey moved to Bali with a $3K runway and did a “Hardcore Year” challenge with the explicit goal of reaching $10K MRR. He built Sheet2Site as one of several projects.
Customer acquisition
Product Hunt, Indie Hackers, Twitter, building in public. Marketing hack: offered free use of Sheet2Site for coronavirus-related websites, which drove massive organic growth.
Timeline
Month 1: $300. Year 1: ~$2K/month. Year 2: $5K–$10K/month. Year 3: sold the business.
Key insight
Built a business that lets OTHER people build businesses from spreadsheets. Meta-level spreadsheet entrepreneurship. Sold after 3 years to work on new ideas.
3.2 — Rodrigo Rocco (Rod) • JobBoardSearch
Product
A comprehensive directory of niche job boards. A “boring and simple” database that helps job seekers find the right niche job board for their industry.
Revenue
$40K+ total, ~$7.3K/month ongoing. Profitable. Costs less than $100/month to run.
Team size
Solo. Self-taught coder from Mallorca, Spain (started coding at age 12).
How it started
Rod built the directory without intending to monetize. After 2 months online, Pieter Levels DMed him saying “Start charging.” That DM changed everything.
Customer acquisition
SEO, organic search. The directory ranks for “job boards for [niche]” queries.
Timeline
Built the directory. 2 months in: Pieter Levels says “start charging.” Grew to $40K+ total and $7.3K/month.
Key insight
A “boring and simple” directory of job boards makes $7K/month. Costs $100/month to run. The simplicity IS the feature. Pieter Levels literally told him to monetize.
3.3 — Failory (Nico Jannarone)
Product
Database of 14,000+ startups (including 400+ failed startups), filtered by country, industry, type of customer, and cause of failure. Interviews with founders of failed and successful startups.
Revenue
$1,700–$3,000/month from sponsorships, newsletter ads, and affiliate commissions.
Team size
Solo. Started the project at age 15.
How it started
A teenager studying Business Economics started interviewing founders of failed startups, compiled the data into a directory, and grew it over 3+ years.
Customer acquisition
SEO, social media, email newsletter.
Timeline
Started at age 15. 3+ years of building. Now $2K–$3K/month steady.
Key insight
A teenager built a $3K/month curated database of startup failures. The niche — failure stories — is what made it unique. Monetized through sponsorships, not subscriptions.
3.4 — Vance Lucas • Google Sheets Extension
Product
A Google Sheets extension (add-on distributed directly into users’ Google Sheets).
Revenue
$1.6K+ MRR (~$19K/year).
Team size
Solo.
How it started
Built a Google Sheets extension as an indie project. Distributed through the Google Workspace Marketplace.
Customer acquisition
Google Workspace Marketplace organic discovery. Users find it while searching for Sheets add-ons.
Timeline
Built and launched. Grew to $1.6K MRR.
Key insight
The Google Workspace Marketplace is an underrated distribution channel. Build a Sheets extension and the marketplace brings the users.
3.5 — Leandro • Sync2Sheets
Product
Tool that syncs Notion databases with Google Sheets. A bridge between two popular platforms.
Revenue
$9K MRR (~$108K/year), 400+ paying customers including Canva and Wix. 85% gross margin.
Team size
Solo (former freelance software developer from Buenos Aires).
How it started
Leandro pivoted from freelancing. Built and launched the product in just two weeks. Cost $0 to start.
Customer acquisition
Product Hunt, organic search, word of mouth within Notion community.
Timeline
Built in 2 weeks. Grew to $9K MRR.
Key insight
“Bridge” products between popular platforms are goldmines. Notion-to-Sheets sync sounds boring but it’s $108K/year. $0 startup cost, 2 weeks to build, 85% margins.
3.6 — Mike Cardona • Newsletter-in-Airtable
Product
An Airtable database that allows users to run a complete newsletter operation entirely through Airtable.
Revenue
Sold the database for $7K (one-time sale documented on Indie Hackers).
Team size
Solo.
How it started
Built an Airtable setup for managing newsletters, documented the workflow, sold access.
Customer acquisition
Indie Hackers community, Twitter.
Key insight
You can sell a single Airtable database for $7K if it solves a real workflow problem. No code, no app — just a well-structured Airtable base.
5. 4. The “Spreadsheet to SaaS” Pipeline: Companies That Started as Spreadsheets
These companies prove the pattern: start with a spreadsheet, validate demand, then optionally build software.
4.1 — Jesse Mecham • YNAB (You Need A Budget)
What it became
One of the most popular personal finance apps in the world. Subscription SaaS.
Revenue
$4.2M/year (early figure, now much larger). Tens of thousands of users worldwide.
How it literally started
Jesse was a broke, newly married college student. He created a budgeting Excel spreadsheet for himself and his wife. He tried selling it online for $10 — nobody bought. He raised the price to $20 — people started buying.
The evolution
Excel spreadsheet ($20) → desktop software → SaaS app (2015, subscription model). The original product was literally a .xlsx file sold online.
Timeline
Founded 2004 as an Excel spreadsheet. Grew to $4.2M+/year. Now a full SaaS company with team.
Key insight
The canonical “spreadsheet to multi-million dollar SaaS” story. Nobody bought at $10, but people bought at $20. The product was Excel. The business model was “sell a file for $20.”
4.2 — Pieter Levels • Nomad List (revisited)
Already covered in Tier 1, but worth emphasizing: Nomad List was literally a shared Google Spreadsheet
before it was a website. People added city data collaboratively in a Google Sheet. Pieter turned that
sheet into a $5.3M/year product. The spreadsheet was the MVP.
4.3 — Indie Hacker Anonymous • $100K from Google Sheets (No Software)
Context
Documented on Indie Hackers: a team spent $10K on 2 failed products, then generated $100K using just Google Sheets.
Revenue
$100K+ from Google Sheets alone, after $10K wasted on two failed software products.
The lesson
They realized most marketplace ideas should start with Google Forms & Sheets as their go-to-market strategy and focus on sales first, with the product built only after hitting a revenue threshold.
Key insight
“You can get to 6 or 7 figures in revenue without even building software.” The spreadsheet IS the product until you have enough revenue to justify building an app.
4.4 — GrowthList
Product
Database of 57,000+ funded startups with verified decision-maker contacts, funding details, and company intelligence. Updated weekly.
Curated database sold as downloadable lists — essentially selling CSVs of verified startup data to sales teams and recruiters.
Key insight
The “sell lead lists as CSVs” model in action. Curate public data, verify it, package it, sell access. A database of funded startups is valuable to every B2B sales team.
4.5 — ListKit (Christian Bonnier, Daniel Fazio, Andre Haykal Jr)
Product
B2B lead generation platform with 500M+ leads. “Triple-verified” email data for cold outreach.
Revenue
$1M+ ARR. $0 to $25M ARR in 18 months (claimed by co-founder) with $0 advertising spend.
How it started
The founders ran a cold email agency for 3 years and were frustrated by bad lead data. They built the tool they wished existed. Founded 2024.
Customer acquisition
$0 ad spend. All organic: Twitter/X content, YouTube, Skool community, word of mouth from cold email practitioners.
Key insight
Not a solo founder story, but demonstrates the “agency to productized data” pipeline. Run a service, identify the data gap, build the database, sell access at scale.
Fastest: Easlo — $3,000 in month 1 of first paid template
Typical: 1–3 months for first dollar, 6–12 months to $1K/month
Longest: BuiltWith — 17+ years of compounding to reach $14M/year
Median time to $10K MRR: approximately 12–24 months across all examples
Common Traits
Zero or near-zero startup cost. Most started with free tools (Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, a basic website).
Solo or very small team. 15 of 20 are solo founders. The rest have 2–5 people.
The data IS the product. Not software — a curated, organized collection of information.
SEO is the most reliable long-term channel. Every $1M+ business relies heavily on organic search.
Twitter is the fastest growth channel. For the younger founders (Easlo, Pieter Levels, Dru Riley), Twitter is primary.
Pricing courage matters. YNAB: nobody bought at $10, people bought at $20. Pretty Arrow: switched from $2 printables to $20 spreadsheets. Higher prices = more revenue.
Free content builds trust before paid products. Almost every example started with free content, free templates, or free reports before charging.
Boring wins. Job board directories, SaaS comparison sites, city databases, budget spreadsheets — the most boring niches generate the most reliable revenue.
7. 6. The Repeatable Playbook (Distilled from All 20 Examples)
Phase 1: Pick Your Data Niche (Week 1)
Choose a niche where:
People currently waste time manually collecting scattered information
The data changes over time (creating ongoing value for subscriptions)
No dominant player owns the niche yet, OR the dominant player is overpriced (ZoomInfo at $15K+/year)
You personally understand the domain (Pieter Levels was a nomad; Emily McDermott needed a budget)
Phase 2: Build the Spreadsheet MVP (Week 2–4)
Google Sheets, Airtable, or Notion — pick one
Manually curate 100–500 entries of genuinely useful, hard-to-find data
Structure it well: consistent columns, clean formatting, no empty fields
This IS your product. Do not build software yet.
Phase 3: Give It Away to Build Trust (Week 4–8)
Share a free sample (first 50 entries, or a subset) on Twitter, Indie Hackers, relevant communities
Write about what you learned curating the data (this becomes your SEO content)
Collect feedback: what’s missing? What would people pay for?
Build an email list of people who downloaded the free version
Phase 4: Start Charging (Month 2–3)
Use Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, or Paytable to sell access
Price at $29–$99 for one-time access, or $9–$29/month for updated data
Remember: YNAB sold at $10 and nobody bought. At $20, people bought. Price higher than you think.
Email your free-tier list about the paid version
Phase 5: Scale the Distribution (Month 3–12)
SEO play: Write blog posts around every data point in your database. Each post targets a long-tail keyword.
Twitter play: Share one interesting finding from your data every day. Thread format works best.
Product Hunt play: Launch on PH once you have 500+ entries and a clean landing page.
Marketplace play: List on AppSumo (for software/courses), Etsy (for spreadsheets), or Google Workspace Marketplace (for Sheets extensions).
Phase 6: Optionally Graduate to Software (Month 12+)
Only build software if you are limited by the spreadsheet format
Many of the examples above never left the spreadsheet — Pretty Arrow Budget, Better Sheets, Easlo all sell documents
If you do build software, keep it simple: a searchable database with filters (like BuiltWith, SaaSHub, Nomad List)
The “spreadsheet to SaaS” graduation is optional, not required