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- $17K MRR From Reddit Alone, an 18-Year-Old's $1K AI Canvas, and Dog Parents Ditching $1,500 Boarding Fees
$17K MRR From Reddit Alone, an 18-Year-Old's $1K AI Canvas, and Dog Parents Ditching $1,500 Boarding Fees
Chris Bulen & Daniel Ebohon
August 11, 2026
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Hi everyone 👋
It's Chris & Daniel, from Startups.fyi.
Welcome back! This week we found a founder who hit $17K MRR using nothing but Reddit, an 18-year-old whose AI canvas already makes $1K a month, and dog parents who figured out how to skip $1,500 boarding fees entirely. Real founders, real revenue, no fluff.
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Startups FYI Spotlight
✍️ Here is an e-signature API that charges only 5 cents per envelope and also embed document signing directly into your application. (Pre-revenue)
🏷️ Some founders find it difficult to name a business, this free AI generator creates memorable names with brand analysis and domain checking built in. (Generating $100 as a side project)
🎟️ Just discovered this tool that every school and church committee needs to know about it. It runs polished reverse raffles in seconds, so no more paper tickets, messy spreadsheets, or awkward manual draws. (Generating $300 MRR)
🎨 Content research means drowning in tabs and scattered notes. An 18-year-old built a visual AI canvas that connects your sources and turns them into content ideas. (Generating $1,000 for the solo founder)
🍜 Turns any menu into a QR ordering system with multilingual support and collects Google reviews while it's at it. (Generating $1,000 MRR)
🐶 Dog boarding for a honeymoon quoted this founder $1,500. So, he built a community where dog parents trade sitting favors with each other for free. (Generating $3,000/month, bootstrapped)
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Startups FYI Roundup
🤖 The 7-Step Playbook Behind an $85M AI Startup
Chris Donnelly has built four businesses past 8 figures, and his latest, Searchable, went from zero to $3M ARR and an $85M valuation in five months. In this video he walks through his exact playbook: how he validated the idea, built a waitlist, designed an early access deal that converts 50 to 70% of people, and turned content into a customer machine.
The Next Breakout Might Be in Your Pocket
Everyone’s hunting for the next Unicorn.
The type of “category disruptor” that grows fast and turns early believers into big winners.
59,000+ investors think that Mode Mobile could be one of those rare finds.
Americans spend 4 ½ hours on their phones daily, and Mode Mobile is monetizing that screentime. With $1B+ earned by over 490M customers and 32,481% revenue growth, Mode’s EarnPhone is turning smartphones into income generating assets.
Their previous raises sold out, and the company is now offering pre-IPO shares at $0.52/share with up to 20% bonus, exclusive to early investors.
Being early is everything, and this window is still open.
*Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com.
Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.
The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.
💰 The Solo Founder Collecting $150M+ From One Acquisition
Maor Shlomo launched Base44 after returning from army reserve duty, bootstrapped it solo, and sold it to Wix less than two years later. Now the earnout payments keep coming: a fresh $41M just landed after the AI company passed new growth milestones, pushing his total past $150 million. Proof that solo founders can win at the highest level.
📱 $17K MRR With Less Than 100 Followers
Diego Roshardt built App Alchemy, an AI tool for designing mobile app interfaces, to $17K MRR in four months with basically no audience. His secret was Reddit: value-first posts that pulled over 1 million views without spending a cent on ads. This breakdown covers his exact playbook, from finding the right subreddits to plugging your product without getting banned.
(Tag @ChrisBulen to get your project featured in next week’s roundup)
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That’s it for this time! See you again next week.
— Chris (@ChrisBulen)