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- $35K MRR, 500+ AI models in one API, and $10,599 in 10 days — this week's best founder stories
$35K MRR, 500+ AI models in one API, and $10,599 in 10 days — this week's best founder stories
Chris Bulen & Eromosele Idahota
April 07, 2026
In partnership with
Hi everyone 👋
It’s Chris & Daniel, from Startups.fyi.
Happy new month — and Happy Easter to everyone celebrating! 🐣🌷
We hope you’re recharged, inspired, and ready to build something amazing this April.
So we're starting this month with some of the best tools and projects we've seen from real founders. TechCrunch doesn't always cover these kinds of products, but people are quietly building, shipping, and earning from them.
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We’d love to hear from you—if there’s anything you'd like us to cover, just reach out on X and say hi! 👋🏾.
Alright, let’s jump into this week’s discoveries 👇
How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads
For its first CTV campaign, Jennifer Aniston’s DTC haircare brand LolaVie had a few non-negotiables. The campaign had to be simple. It had to demonstrate measurable impact. And it had to be full-funnel.
LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.
The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.
Discover how Roku Ads Manager helped LolaVie drive big sales and customer growth with self-serve TV ads.
The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.
Startups FYI Spotlight
🧮 This tool is super simple but surprisingly useful. You describe any project like construction, tech, creative, whatever and it generates a professional estimate in under 30 seconds, which you can also edit and download as an invoice. No sign-up needed. (Pre-revenue)
🤖 This tool popped up in my feed and it’s basically like giving your AI agents an automation factory. You can build workflows, chain automations, and let AI handle the boring operational stuff. (Pre-revenue)
🧔♂️→🙂 I ran into this tool randomly and honestly, it’s low-key impressive. You upload a photo and it instantly generates a clean, professional version of you without your beard. It’s basically a quick way to see how to get a sharper profile picture in one click. (Generating $100 MRR)
🪐 This easy-to-use tool feels like the “one API to rule them all.” It pulls together 500+ AI models from places like OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, Midjourney, Suno, under one roof. If you build with AI and hate juggling multiple APIs, then this is for you.
Built by a solo-founder in hongkong. (Generating $300 MRR)
🔳 I discovered this tool while looking for smarter ways to use QR codes. It lets you create branded, dynamic QR codes and track every scan with analytics. The UI is clean, and you can do redirects and automation without touching code. (Generating $1,000 MRR for the solo founder)
🧑🎨 Here is the last find for the day, this tool connects startups to the top 0.8% of vetted freelance designers. The idea is simple: fast access to senior-level design talent without hiring full-time. If you’ve ever needed a designer yesterday, this might be the kind of tool you bookmark. ( Ran by multiple founders from San Francisco and generating $35,000 MRR)
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Startups FYI Roundup
🦞How I Made $10,599 With OpenClaw in 10 Days
This youtuber made $10,599 in 10 days selling done-for-you AI employee setups. 4 clients. one $600/month retainer. all from OpenClaw.
In his video he shows you the exact system. How to set up an AI employee on a cheap VPS, secure it properly, make it actually useful with good prompts, then automate your entire sales pipeline with cron jobs.
🦞 Making $$$ with OpenClaw
I sat down with Nick Vasilescu, founder of Orgo, to break down exactly how people are turning OpenClaw — the open-source computer use agent — into a real revenue stream.
Nick walks me through live demos of deploying OpenClaw for business clients, shows how sub-agents and parallelization multiply output, and shares his design-thinking framework for identifying and automating high-value workflows.
🦞 I gave AI $10,000 to trade crypto while I slept
Are you curious to find out what will happen if you give OpenClaw AI agents with full computer access, $10,000 to trade crypto and what might happen?
(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)