$12M meal prep software, $60K mechanical keyboard side hustle + new matcha tea trend?

Hey,

Happy Thursday, starters!

This week, we are featuring 5 inspiring stories you can't miss:

#1: Michael built a $12M/year meal prep software after launching in a market that wasn't ready.

We just spoke with Michael Rapoport with Sprwt - a turnkey meal prep software.

His business is now generating over $1M/month with a global client-base spanning over 5 continents. 

Their secret? Simply building what their customers asked for - they built each and every feature requested by customers free of charge - and it was the best decision they ever made. 

Read Michaels's full story here (their launch story is one for the books).

#2: How Brad dominated this niche: people obsessed with keyboards.

We just published our interview with Brad Agden, founder of Tech Keys. 

Brad turned his passion for keyboards into a successful side hustle earning $5k/month.

(how to identify a trend? Check out 'mechanical keyboards' on Google Trends below).

His strategy? Forums and social media. 

In fact, hitting the front page of Reddit yielded some of the highest traffic his site has ever seen.

Give Brad's story a read - it's pretty remarkable.

Want to learn how to hit the front page of Reddit? I wrote up all of my tips (from my experience at Starter Story) here.

#3: Travis just raised $1M Kickstarter for a board game.

Did you catch our interview last year with the $360K/year board game business?

Well, we caught up with Travis last week, and let's just say he's had quite the year of growth. 

He recently launched a new game and is on pace to raise $1M on Kickstarter. 

Read Travis's story and his tips for a successful Kickstarter campaign here.

Want to learn more about Kickstarter? Check out these 8 tips from founders who have raised millions.

#4: 40 Successful Bloggers Earning Up To $2M/Year.

We searched through our database of hundreds of case studies and found 40 successful bloggers to inspire you.

Affiliate income graph from successful blog - eBiz Facts. 

#5: Matcha - it's a trend.

Is matcha on an upward trajectory for 2020 and beyond?

Just ask Andre Fasciola - he founded matcha.com and is now making over $1M/year.

Here's what Andre has identified in the matcha market:

• Customer demographic: Anyone ranging from 18-75 that wants a healthy alternative to coffee.
• The quality of matcha in the US is nowhere near the quality in Japan - which is something Andre decided to fix and capitalize on.
• Approx 80% of all the best matcha grown in Japan stays in Japan for their consumption.

The global matcha market is valued at approx $3B and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.6% by 2025.

Are you ready to boost your revenue?

I want to give a shoutout to our long-time sponsor Klaviyo.

Using Klaviyo will open up a massive, untapped sales channel and bring you closer to your customers!

I'm a huge fan of the product (I use it for Starter Story and love the segmentation/drip features). I've also been able to collect so many emails using their website form integration - my list growing over 1k/month now 😲

Here are just some of the impressive businesses we've interviewed that use Klaviyo for email marketing and are raving about the product - all great interviews you should check out as well!

• Brumate ($1.1M/mo at 23 years old)
• Sheets & Giggles ($76k/mo in just 6 months)
• Beardbrand ($100k+/mo - 1.5M YouTube subscribers)
• Abs Protein Pancakes ($25k/mo passive income business)
• Xero Shoes ($460k/mo - featured on Shark Tank)
• The Longhairs ($30k/mo)
• Framed Tweets ($25k/mo)

Level up your email marketing with 👉 Klaviyo!

(And thank you for your support 🙏)

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Thanks for reading! See you next week.

- Pat Walls, Founder @ Starter Story

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