The road to 20k MRR: Update #1
2 years in and 24% of the way
Hey friends,
When I first created my software holding company I set myself an ambitious goal of reaching 20k in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) across the portfolio.
Why 20k? At the 20k MRR mark I’d have enough cash flow coming in to go all-in on SaaS and gain a level of freedom I’ve yet to experience.
At 20k I’d be able to pay myself 10k - 12k a month and still have a sizable chunk left over to invest back into the SaaS, either through additional acquisitions, or by investing in the existing portfolio.
I’d gain a huge amount of my time back, and be able to focus on more work that excites me.
In short, hitting 20k MRR would change everything, which is why its a goal that’s always top-of-mind.
So where do things stand today?
At the time of writing this post, I’m sitting at $4.7k MRR, or 24% of the way to 20k. The table above shows the changes over time across the portfolio.
You can see that the journey started with the acquisition of Pulsebanner back in November 2022. Unfortunately after Elon Musk acquired Twitter and changed their API policies, Pulsebanner started to lose subscribers. The changes Twitter implemented crippled Pulsebanner. It was a painful lesson.
Thankfully the acquisition of Meet Slack has been incredible. Last year Meet Slack generated over $40,000. I expect it to continue to grow and generated between 45k - 50k this year.
Unfortunately we had to migrate Meet Slack onto a new Stripe account as part of the handover process. This effectively set all active subscribers (who are mostly on annual subscriptions) to “in trial” until their renewal dates. This reset the MRR tracking in Stripe so I can’t easily see the MRR growth since the app was acquired.
The most recent addition to the portfolio is Translate Channels. Translate channels will do between $15k - $18k this year.
The goal for 2025 is to hit 10k MRR
One of my main goals for 2025 is to hit 10k in MRR across the SaaS portfolio.
To achieve that I’ll need to add another $5,285 in MRR growth before the end of the year.
The plan is to achieve this in the following way:
Meet Slack - $650 in MRR growth
Translate channels - $250 in MRR growth
Feedio - $4,000 in MRR growth
Project Echo - $500 in MRR growth
Meet Slack and Translate Channels will grow organically on auto-pilot. These are “cash cows” with slow growth but very high margin. The amounts listed above are conservative, rough estimates of the growth I expect from the two apps.
Project Echo has the potential to pick up a handful of paying subscribers before the year is over. Project Echo is a pure B2B play and I have high hopes for it. The issue is that it requires a solid 2 - 3 months of development and I just don’t have those resources available at this point. If we can close 5 - 10 customers for Project Echo and hit $500 MRR before the end of the year, that would be fantastic.
The big play for 2025 is Feedio.
Why I believe Feedio has unlimited potential
I haven’t spent much time talking about Feedio. That will start to change in Q2 after we’re done giving the service a “fresh coat of paint” and I relaunch it to the world.
Feedio 2.0 will be a robust marketing platform for content creators (bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, Substackers, etc) offering email marketing automation, newsletters, RSS-to-email, and other distribution features.
Feedio has a unique “brand-first approach” allowing creators to create a central hub for discovery and consumption.
We use Tim Ferriss in our mockups since he’s the GOAT and one creator I want on Feedio more than any other.
I’m spending thousands of dollars a month aggressively building Feedio 2.0 and I can’t wait to share it with the world.
There are a number of big projects left but the roadmap is clear and I’ll continue to share updates in this newsletter.
Hitting 4k MRR in 9 months will be a big challenge but I plan to continue investing profits from the other SaaS, as well as any revenue Feedio generates back into its growth. Feedio is a long term big bet and if the “machine” is working, I’ll throw every dollar I can into its growth.
Thanks for reading.
Justin