Margarets $3M coffee business

Hey - It’s Farzan & Guy,

The weather’s been heating up here in Sydney reaching 30 degrees over the last few days, which is nuts for the last few days of winter. As Spring starts let’s get into some founder stories.

Estimated reading time:  7 mins

In the mail today :

1. Founder story: The indie hacker story of Thomas and Uneed 🔥

2. Founder story: Margaret’s $3M dollar coffee business  ☕️

3. Founder playbook: The $19B story of Whatsapp 🚀

4. Founder help: See how David Fogarty saved this donut business 🍩

5. Founderoo feedback: Win US$50 by leaving us a testimonial 🙏

Founder story

Meet Thomas Sanlis, the indie hacker behind Uneed. With 12K subscribers and 40K monthly visitors, he’s built a tech tools site earning $15,000 a year side income.

A few notes about Thomas Sanlis:

🚀 Indie hacker and founder of Uneed
💼 Bootstrapped to $15,000 annual revenue
📈 12,000 newsletter subscribers and 40,000 monthly visitors
🔧 Built Uneed while freelancing and experimenting with tech tools
🌐 Aims to provide a fair alternative to Product Hunt for discovering tools

Our top 5 takeaways from Thomas’ journey:

👉 Persistence pays off: It took Thomas three years to see significant growth.
👉 Automate and iterate: He leveraged automation to keep daily operations minimal.
👉 Listen to feedback: User insights from yesramen.com helped refine Uneed's vision.
👉 Engage communities: Building in public on Twitter has been a powerful channel for growth.
👉 Solve your own problem: Uneed started as a tool to solve Thomas's own needs.

Thomas Sanlis's journey from a teenager launching side projects to building a tech tool haven, Uneed, shows the power of patience, continuous learning, and staying true to solving real needs. His approach to indie hacking is a mix of leveraging automation, iterating based on user feedback, and embracing a build-in-public mindset.

Founder story

See how Margaret left Wall Street To Start A Coffee Business—Now it brings In $3 Million a year

Margaret Nyamumbo, 36, grew up on a coffee farm in Kenya. It wasn't until her journey took her to the United States—where she earned an MBA from Harvard and worked briefly in investment banking—that she realized she could build a successful coffee business that also supports the farms she grew up around. In 2023, her company, Kahawa 1893, achieved over $3 million in coffee sales.

Founder playbook

From Rejection to a $19 Billion Success: The Story of WhatsApp.

(founder playbooks are the strategies used by successful founders).

A few notes about WhatsApp:

📱 Founded by Brian Acton & Jan Koum in 2009
🌎 Based in Mountain View, California, USA
📊 $906 million in revenue (2022)
👥 2.7 billion monthly active users (as of July 2023)
💰 Acquired by Facebook for $19 billion in 2014

Our top 5 takeaways from WhatsApp’s journey:

👉 Turn rejection into opportunity: Acton and Koum's Facebook rejection led them to create WhatsApp.
👉 Keep it simple: A straightforward, user-friendly interface made WhatsApp stand out.
👉 Prioritize user privacy: WhatsApp's focus on privacy sets it apart in a crowded market.
👉 Seize the right moment: WhatsApp launched when smartphone adoption was booming, and SMS costs were high.
👉 Leverage network effects: A simple, cross-platform app that connected users seamlessly fueled its viral growth.

WhatsApp started in 2009 when Brian Acton and Jan Koum, after leaving Yahoo! and being rejected by Facebook, launched a status-based app. Initially, it struggled, but Apple's push notifications turned it into a real-time messaging app. Its simplicity and cross-platform functionality quickly gained popularity.

Acton joined as a co-founder, raising $250,000 from ex-Yahoo! colleagues, boosting growth, especially where SMS was costly. Sequoia Capital's $58 million investment accelerated its rise, leading to a $19 billion acquisition by Facebook in 2014.

Founder help

See how David Fogarty saves a struggling donut shop.

Entrepreneur Davie Fogarty steps into Cakeboy Donuts, ready to turn things around! In this video, Davie takes on the shop's financial troubles and operational mess with his expert guidance and fresh strategies.

Founderoo feedback

Win US$50 by giving Founderoo a cracking testimonial. 💪

Lots of testimonials are boring and we want cracking ones. Your testimonial for Founderoo can be funny, it can be in a wild location or it can be just downright crazy.

The wildest video testimonial wins US$50 and the wildest written testimonial for those shy on camera wins US20. One winner for each. We will run this for one more week to get a winner.

(By leaving us a testimonial you’re permitting us to use it in our marketing of the newsletter.)

Quick reminder - If you like our newsletter, please do “add to address book” or reply. These are “positive signals” that help our newsletter land in your inbox. If you hate it, please unsubscribe (the unsubscribe link is in the footer).

See you next Sunday.

Guy + Farzan
Founderoo