Starter Story #126: $48K/month matching TikTok influencers and brands

Dear starters,

Pat Walls (PW) here, creator of Starter Story.

As you know, every Thursday we send you an email highlighting the best case studies that we've published on our platform. We also tell how they align with bigger trends - so we can help you be a better founder.

This is a bite-sized summary of the most interesting experiences that starters have shared with us.

I hope you enjoy it!

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Click here to get Starter Story Premium for $179/year. That’s just $3.44 per week, an absolute no brainer investment in your business.

- PW, DB & SW

$72K/YEAR

I Leveraged My Experience To Start A $72K/Year Auto Reply Apps Business At Age 50

"At 49 years of age – yes, 50 was coming soon -☺ I had 15 years of experience (I started in 1998) working as a software/websites product manager, usability expert, project and marketing manager.

I was looking for an area in which I could apply the accumulated knowledge and experience. Several members of my family worked in the field of mobile telephony and mobile applications and actively recommended this direction to me to try to open a small business in this area. "

$1.2M/YEAR

How We Bootstrapped A $1.2M/Year White-Label Payment SaaS

"Since our launch at the beginning of 2020, we have been growing fast. The number of transactions grows exponentially every month, which is normal for a platform that emerged less than two years ago. Last month we reached 1 million transactions. Today, Australia is the only continent where we do not have any clients."

Join Starter Story

2,500+ founders of successful businesses share with you their exact timeline of building their business to thousands of customers.

Learn from real people sharing real stories. The struggles, the wins, the good, and the bad. 

How do people get inspired and find great business opportunities? How do they get their 10 first clients? What challenges do they face at every stage and how to overcome them?

$780K/YEAR

My Father And I Started A $780K/Year Business Reselling Parcels

"My father called me in Australia and narrated his entire year of “business searching” into one magical idea that was very attractive. What I remember about the interaction was the statement that he found a business that met all 4 of his required criteria to start:

1. No staff requirements to start.
2. Limited and manageable start-up franchise costs.
3. Very limited overhead. Especially not a building or space. At-home would be preferable.
4. No required inventory

With this in mind, The idea of signing with the InXpress team was born."

$48K/YEAR

$48K/Year Business Matching TikTok Influencers With Brands

"We find creators that fit the mold we are looking for and email them asking for a list of brands they want to work with. From there, we’ll go out, source the right contacts from the list of brands given to us as well as similar ones, and email them to set up a brand partnership for the creator.

As of October 2021, we’ve generated over $140K in partnerships for our clients."

Sponsored by Klaviyo

Our newsletter just hit 160,000 readers 🎉

Klaviyo is the tool we've used to grow our list to over 163K readers!

At Starter Story, we add over 10,000 new readers to our newsletter every month, mostly thanks to Klaviyo's opt-in tools (such as popups and advanced logic we can do on our site).

Additionally, we generate thousands in additional revenue every month using their email marketing flows and segmentation tools (really cool stuff if you dig into it).

Obviously, I have to say good things since they are our sponsor... but being 100% transparent: Klaviyo has helped us grow our business in a very meaningful way over the last couple of years.

Get Klaviyo today!

$1M/YEAR

We Built A $1M/Year Business Creating Explainer Videos

"We conduct thorough research to identify your brand's core message and convey it effectively, with you as our guide along the way in our bespoke creative process. We have now scaled the business to a level where we are turning over an annual revenue of 1.5 Million USD and we have plans to get that to 3 Million USD by the end of Q4 2022."

$300K/YEAR

This Solo Founder Turned An Internal GRC Tool Into A $300K/Year Business

One thing that’s unique to VComply is that we aren’t even supposed to be a business today. This product wasn’t ever meant to be used by anybody other than us at my previous startup which was a technology services firm.

A quick fast forward to today, VComply has seen some great traction since our seed round of $2.5M in 2019. At $300K in ARR, we raised $6M in Series A funding in early 2021 and are planning to rapidly grow in 2022.

Looking for a job, or some work on the side?

Get your feet wet before you take the plunge into founder life.

Many of the companies we interview are hiring in operations, design, marketing, engineering, and more...

Check out our jobs portal for all new opportunities - new jobs are added every day!

P.S. Again, a huge thank you to Klaviyo - our sponsor at Starter Story. By using Klaviyo, we've grown our email list to 163K and added thousands of dollars in revenue per month through email marketing. Get Klaviyo today!

Looking for a business idea? Find yours from our database of 6,000+ business ideas.

Want to grow your business? Get access 200+ marketing playbooks.

Want to see exactly how 2,500+ founders built businesses to thousands of customers? Join Starter Story today.

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Thanks for reading.

—Pat Walls (PW), David Bustos (DB), Samantha Walls (SW), & the rest of the Starter Story team :)