From Zero to $50K MRR: The Story of Senja's Growth

A remarkable story of how two co-founders, who never met in person, built a successful SaaS business through effective online collaboration.

The Beginning

In June 2022, Wilson was working solo on Senja, a testimonial management tool. As he later shared: "I thought testimonials were cool, but that was about it. I didn't understand the problem, so building a product from the fundamentals just wasn't possible."

When his future co-founder Olly reached out about joining the project, Wilson "happily accepted." This partnership, formed entirely online, would prove transformative for Senja.

Growth Journey (Verified Numbers)

• First paying customer: June 2022
• $100 MRR: August 2022
• $1,000 MRR: December 2022
• $5,000 MRR: May 2023
• $7,500 MRR (Ramen profitability): July 2023
• $10,000 MRR: August 2023
• $30,000 MRR: May 2024
• $50,000 MRR: October 2024

Product Development

Wilson built Senja using:

• Svelte + Sveltekit for site and widgets
• Postgres + Hasura for database and API
• Firebase

As documented in their public updates, the team has made over 2,000 improvements to the app since launch.

Partnership Dynamic

The founders maintain a clear division of responsibilities:

• Wilson (Technical Co-founder): Development and engineering
• Olly (Marketing Co-founder): Marketing strategy and customer understanding

Despite never meeting in person due to geographical constraints, they've built a successful remote collaboration.

Current Status (As of October 2024)

• MRR: $50,000
• Paying customers: Over 1,500
• Free users: Nearly 10,000
• Team size: 2 founders
• Funding: 100% bootstrapped
• Charitable giving: 3% of MRR

Lessons From Their Journey

In their own words, key learnings include:

1. "Building a good product got us from 0-1, building an incredible onboarding took us from 1-5"
2. "It feels CRIMINAL how we've grown without sweating the small stuff"
3. "The biggest reason we build in public isn't because of the awareness... It's 100% because of the cool people we meet daily"

Their success highlights how crucial finding the right co-founder can be for a startup's trajectory. While Wilson and Olly found each other through Twitter, today's founders have more structured options for finding complementary partners, such as IndieMerger, a platform specifically designed for founder matching.

Future Goals

The team has publicly stated their next target is $80,000 MRR while maintaining their lean, bootstrapped approach and focus on customer success.