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- Free ChatGPT Alternative Hits $500 MRR, 14-Day MVP Tool Reaches $10K, and New AI Call Assistant Automates Inbound Calls
Free ChatGPT Alternative Hits $500 MRR, 14-Day MVP Tool Reaches $10K, and New AI Call Assistant Automates Inbound Calls
Chris Bulen & Daniel Ebohon
April 28, 2026
In partnership with
Hi everyone 👋
It’s Chris & Daniel, from Startups.fyi.
Welcome back to another episode of the best tools and projects we've seen from real founders quietly building, shipping, and earning from them.
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Alright, let’s jump into this week’s discoveries 👇
Startups FYI Spotlight
🤖 AI Call Answering Service
Here is an AI-powered answering service tool that handles inbound calls with AI first, then hands off to a live operator whenever the caller needs a human (Pre-revenue)
📺 Social Media Feed Embed Tool
Discover this easy-to-use no-code widget that lets you embed live social media feeds directly on your website, with no coding needed. Pull in content from your social profiles and display it cleanly on-site in minutes. (Pre-revenue)
🧰 Browser-Based Productivity Toolkit
Here is a growing collection of free micro-tools for quick everyday tasks. Think of it as a free utility belt built with no-code for anyone who wants to get small things done without hunting for the right app. (Currently generating $200 MRR for the Solo-founder)
🆓 Free ChatGPT-Alternative
This tool is positioning itself as a zero-cost alternative to ChatGPT, giving users access to AI features with no subscription or payment required. (Generating $500 MRR)
Stop babysitting dashboards. Ship from Slack. Touch grass.
700+ teams have Viktor reading their Google Ads every morning.
Your media team opens Slack at 8am. There's a cross-platform brief in #growth: Google Ads spend vs. ROAS, Meta CPA by campaign, Stripe revenue by channel. Viktor posted it at 6am. Nobody asked for it.
Last week, one team's Viktor caught a spend spike at 2am on a broad match campaign and flagged it in Slack: "CPA up 340%. Recommend pausing and shifting budget to the top two performers." That would have burned $3K by morning. The media buyer woke up to a problem already handled.
Your strategist reviews spend trends. Your account manager checks revenue attribution. Same Slack channel, same colleague, before anyone's first coffee.
Google Ads, Meta, Stripe. One message. No Looker, no Data Studio. Anomaly detection runs around the clock. Cross-platform reporting runs on autopilot.
5,700+ teams. SOC 2 certified. Your data never trains models.
"Viktor is now an integral team member, and after weeks of use we still feel we haven't uncovered the full potential." — Patrick O'Doherty, Director, Yarra Web
🧮 Math-to-LaTeX Converter
Snap a photo of any math formula and get a clean, editable LaTeX in seconds. Here is a free browser-based tool that handles formula recognition and LaTeX editing without any setup. (Generating $1,000 MRR for the solo-founder)
🚀 Rapid SaaS Builder for Founders
Here is a fixed-price service tool that promises to build an MVP in 14 days using React, Next.js, Supabase, Tailwind, and Vercel.(Generating $10,000 MRR for the solo-founder with no employee)
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Startups FYI Roundup
🎥 Make YouTube Shorts With Claude
Creators winning on Shorts aren’t working harder — they’re prompting smarter.
These 12 Claude prompts give you a full content engine: no screen time, no equipment, no excuses.
💰 He Turned $20M Into $75B With One 6-Minute Meeting
In 2000, Masayoshi Son handed a former English teacher $20M. No revenue. No product. Silicon Valley laughed.
Fourteen years later, that “charity” turned into $75B. Most people know the headline — not the wild details.
⚡$20 → $800 in 6 Minutes
While agencies quote $5,000 and three weeks, this guy found local businesses on Google Maps, dropped their details into ChatGPT 5.5, and generated a professional website in under a minute.
$20 in tools. $780 profit.
Every town has hundreds of potential clients.
(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)