Brief Summary
Mike, an Australian founder, shares his journey of building five successful SaaS apps generating over $200,000 MRR. He emphasizes a repeatable, risk-minimizing framework that ensures success for each app. Key points include focusing on proven ideas, building a strong team, prioritizing design, offering lifetime deals, and leveraging content marketing.
- Focus on ideas that have been done before to minimize risk.
- Build a tech-heavy team with a designer and prioritize UX.
- Offer lifetime deals to gain early traction and feedback.
- Use content marketing to drive traffic and establish authority.
- Focus on building something you love, not just what customers want.
Intro
Mike, an Australian founder, has built five SaaS apps that generate over $200,000 MRR. He uses a repeatable framework that ensures the success of each app. Mike shares his five apps, his method for selecting ideas that are likely to succeed, and his 10-step playbook.
Who is Mike?
Mike is the founder of three SaaS businesses that generate over $200,000 MRR, with two more in development. His current businesses include curator.io, juno.co, frill.co, and fluke.co, with soonmile.co launching soon. His goal is to reach $1 million MRR within five years with a small team and without raising capital.
Apps Breakdown
Mike's businesses include curator.io, a social media aggregator for websites and events; frill.co, a customer feedback tool for collecting feedback, plotting roadmaps, and announcing new features; juno.co, a digital signage business for cafes, gyms, schools, and shops; and fluke.co, a no-code tours platform for building onboarding tours for SaaS businesses. His upcoming business, soonmile.co, is an innovative group e-card platform for B2B businesses. These five apps generate over $200,000 MRR and were launched using the same playbook.
Background
Mike used to be a Flash developer and ran a digital advertising agency, which he later sold. He realized he was not good at advertising and transitioned back into building products, which he enjoyed more.
Mike's Approach to Building
Mike's approach to building apps focuses on minimizing risk, with the expectation that every business will succeed. He finds an idea, assesses its potential despite poor UX, and assembles a tech-heavy team with a front-end developer, back-end developer, designer, and someone to manage the product. He always starts with four co-founders to minimize founder fallout and splits the company equally. Design is prioritized, and team members are expected to contribute to UX. After reaching $10,000 MRR, profits are split among the founders, focusing on salaries rather than big exits, and maintaining a lean operation.
How to Build a Unicorn
HubSpot for Startups has created a resource called "How to Build a Unicorn in 2025," which provides data and insights on building successful billion-dollar businesses. The guide identifies winning companies, hot industries, and fast-rising topics, offering actionable advice for building a successful startup.
10 Step Proven Playbook
Mike's 10-step playbook for launching a business includes:
- Pick an Idea That's Been Done Before: Choose ideas that are already validated to minimize risk.
- Decide What Is a Good Enough MVP: Identify essential features from competitors and quickly launch the MVP.
- Offer a Lifetime Deal (LTD): Sell the product for a one-time payment to gain early adopters.
- Never Give Away an Account for Free: Charge users to ensure they value and use the product.
- Do as Much Work as Possible to Sell a Private LTD: Engage in Reddit and Facebook groups to promote the product.
- Start Writing Content: Begin writing landing pages and blog posts early to improve search engine indexing.
- Launch on AppSumo: Utilize AppSumo's marketplace or sales team to reach a large audience and generate capital.
- Do One Last Private LTD: Offer a final lifetime deal at a slightly higher price to capture remaining interested customers.
- Live or Die Moment: Encourage LTD customers to write honest reviews on platforms like Trustpilot and G2 to boost domain ranking.
- Engage on Reddit: Answer questions and provide authentic responses in relevant subreddits to attract customers.
Good vs Bad Ideas
Mike avoids AI-focused businesses due to the risk of relying on external APIs. He considers documentation tools a promising area, as existing solutions are either inadequate or overpriced. Good documentation is crucial for AI to recommend products effectively, but he avoids making AI an integral part of the business.
Tech Stack
The tech stack varies based on the founding team's preferences, including Vue or React for the front end and PHP with Laravel for the back end. Mike recommends Willow Voice for voice typing, granola for meeting notes, Slack for communication, Framer for websites, and VO for prototyping.
Final Advice
Mike advises working with people you enjoy and creating something you love building, not just what customers want. He emphasizes the importance of enjoying the work and the people you work with.
Final Word
Mike's apps are successful because they address practical needs without being overly complex. Starter Story Build helps users turn their ideas into real apps using AI tools.
