December 2024 Income Report

In an age of AI and marketing dictated by algorithms, I’m obsessed with which online businesses continue to thrive.

I spend countless hours each month going through earnings reports and funding rounds to find trends and discover success stories to help with your own journey.

I’m excited to share we’re back for 2025 with the third ever Gaps income report.

Traffic to Gaps grew 31% in December compared to November while increasing time spent on site — a nice surprise as websites are typically much quieter during the holiday season.

With that in mind, I want to say a huge ‘Thank You’ once again to everyone who has been sharing our work. It does not go unnoticed.

I want to continue trying to be valuable, so let’s dive in…

Mini Exclusive: Email Template Builder Stripo Grows Past $410,000 in MRR and 1.5M Users

In December I spoke with the team behind Stripo who told me they’ve consistently grown their drag-and-drop email template SaaS revenue by 10% each month.

Founded in 2017 and fully bootstrapped, Stripo generated around $4.8M in 2024, serving over one and a half million users.

They’re not too dissimilar to BeeFree, a startup from last month’s earnings report where I noted they had surpassed $15M in annual revenue.

Email templates are generally something you expect to be included in your sending platform of choice (Kit, MailChimp, Active Campaign, etc.) and Stripo aligns with that by integrating with numerous providers, including Gmail.

We use the phrase ‘Mini Exclusive’ as Exclusive alone feels very egotistical to me (I’m weird, I know). I’m generally just trying to share our goal of making these reports more valuable by getting original revenue numbers.

Stackfix Raised $3M For a Beautiful Software Comparison Website With SEO Potential

London-based Stackfix was founded by Paddy Stobbes and Camin McCluskey, the former of which sold his previous company to TikTok.

While announcing their $3M seed round they revealed brands have already spent thousands of dollars on their platform to help them find the best software for their business use case.

As someone who loves simple website designs, I think Stackfix is beautiful.

With pages offering reviews on popular tools like Klayviyo, Zendesk and Bamboo HR, it’s not hard to predict that SEO is likely going to be a huge focus of theirs going forward.

Ahrefs shows they’re already starting to pick up some small traction, but they also don’t have much content on the site, which I expect to change pretty soon.

Jungle, the AI Flashcard Builder for Studying, Has Now Reached $850,000 in ARR

Entrepreneur Julian Alvarez, co-founder & CEO of Jungle, revealed in his end-of-year roundup that the company grew from $300K in ARR to $850,000.

The platform, which is profitable, grew from 200,000 to 650,000 users in the same timeframe.

Flashcards can be incredible for helping you remember specific knowledge and I’ve been public over the years about being a big fan of a similar solution, Anki.

What’s smart about a tool like Anki is that you’re only asked a question when you’re likely to have started to forget the answer. There’s little point in studying material you already know incredibly well.

I don’t know if Jungle has this specific functionality – it’s not mentioned on their homepage – but it is why I have a positive view of flashcards as a whole.

Users upload their coursework or presentation slides, then Jungle’s AI capabilities quickly generates flashcards with multiple-choice questions.

Rebranded as a Go-To-Market AI Platform, Copy.ai Grew Revenue 480% in 2024 ($50M+ in ARR)

If you were active on X over the last few years you might have seen Copy.ai CEO and co-founder Paul Yacoubian sharing regular progress updates on the business.

By October of 2022 his company was generating over $10M in annual recurring revenue with just 31 full-time employees.

We can assume the company continued to grow in 2023, but even if things plateaued, knowing they grew 2024 revenue by 480% brings the number for the year to at least $58M.

When it launched, the company was solely marketed around using AI to help you create copy for the likes of ads, social media posts and web pages.

Today they’ve branded themselves as “the first-ever Go-to-Market (GTM) AI platform” and content creation is just one of their offerings.

CatBox, a Subscription Box for Cat Toys and Treats, Surpassed $30,000 MRR in December

Multiple searches for ‘catbox’ in Google wouldn’t show me entrepreneur Alex Brittingham’s business of the same name, so either Google is still pretty broken or Alex has lots of upside to come (or both).

Hopefully this link to shopcatbox.com helps.

Each box the company delivers promises to focus on a specific theme and includes three handmade toys and two treats.

Their monthly subscription plan costs $29.95 (there’s a 20% discount on the first box) or you can get a one-time delivery for $34.95.

The name and branding are on point, and it’s something I could see cat owners happy to subscribe to for a long time. Well done, Alex, and thanks to Niall for the heads up on this one.

In Personal News, We Released a Report on SEO and the Stock Market That Became One of the Most Popular Things I’ve Shared…Ever

If you’re familiar with me (Glen) outside of Gaps, you’ve likely seen my reports on Detailed.com where I cover the business side of SEO.

Way back in 2014 I wrote a report on ‘SEO and the Stock Market’, going in-depth on which public companies appear to be the most reliant on ranking well in Google.

It’s a topic I still cover years later, where I write regular social media updates on earnings calls from the likes of Nerdwallet and Chegg, who mention how search traffic impacts them.

A couple of weeks ago I published a dedicated page tracking how similar companies are performing, which you can view at gaps.com/public/.

If you’ve ever wondered how a company’s share price might be impacted by their presence in Google search then my aim is to make that much easier to see.

I’m hesitant to go into too much detail here as I don’t want anything to be construed as financial advice, but we’ve seen how SEO impacts companies like Reddit and Chegg in a big way, at opposite ends of the scale.

I’ve always wanted this page for myself, but it seems like the idea has resonated as it has easily become one of the most shared pieces of content I’ve ever created. A huge thank you to everyone who spread the word.

If you have any questions or feedback on the data, they might be answered at the FAQ at the bottom of that page. Otherwise, I’m happy to help via the email address there.

CarMats.co.uk Generated £9.5M in 2024, Up 72% Year-over-Year (And the Business Only Launched in 2020)

In our October monthly report I featured CarMats.co.uk as one of my favourite success stories to follow, and now we have a year end update on their revenue.

Entrepreneur Ash Young revealed the company received 208,908 orders in 2024, a 61% increase on the previous year. Their average revenue per order increased as well.

To be respectful I never want to dive too much into the specifics (keywords, backlinks, etc.), but at least according to Similarweb estimates, their top traffic source is Direct, followed by paid search and then organic search.

Ash co-founded digital marketing agency Evoluted in 2006, so it’s fair to say he has a lot of experience growing brands with SEO and paid marketing.

FINNY Raised $4.3M to Challenge Zoominfo and Pitchbook for Prospecting, With an Interesting Twist on Their Focus

You’ve heard it a million times before: When starting your business, go niche. Once you’ve cornered a particular market, you can expand from there (if you wish to do so, that is).

FINNY are already on step one of that approach by building a database and SaaS solution for prospecting, but solely targeting financial advisors.

While niching down like this can limit your potential user base, your marketing efforts can often be much more effective.

Your website messaging can focus on the exact pain points a particular group of people has and you can focus on just the specific channels which make the most sense.

With The Design Studio He Launched a Year Ago, Chris Halaska Reveals He Just Generated $160,000 in a Single Month

If you’ve seen our report on Design startups or you’re active on “Design Twitter” then you’re likely already familiar with Chris Halaska.

In December of 2023 he founded Halaska Studio.

His updates have proven popular, sharing that he reached $46K AUD (~$26,800 USD) in recurring revenue after just two weeks.

On December 23rd he revealed he had just generated $160,000 in a single month.

Previously at Google, Chris has the skills to back up his numbers, with an impressive portfolio showcasing his skills with design and user experience.

eSelf Raises $4.5M and Continues to Prove the Trend That There’s a Market for Talking with AI Avatars

Israel-based eSelf offers businesses customizable AI agents which can engage in video conversations with their customers.

In just two prior income reports we’ve already covered several companies raising funding for a similar concept:

• Anam: “Human faces for your product”
• Beyond Presence: “Digital twins for human-like conversations”
• VidLab7 “exceptionally realistic live avatars”

Examples eSelf gives that people might want to talk to include a health coach, trading advisor, history teacher and a real estate agent.

With similar solutions I’ve found that when characters are still clearly AI, talking to them feels off.

As I’ve said in the past however, I’m simply not the target market for solutions like these and I can totally get why some people would use them.

Mini Exclusive: [Updated Below] Grew to $5M ARR in 2024, With 99% of Revenue Generated By Their Bank Statement Converter

The niche of converting bank statements online is probably the last you’re ever likely to think about, but now we have another success story in the space thanks to [Updated below].

(You may recall in our November report we covered BankStatementConverter.com which generated $32K in November).

They more than doubled their revenue in 2024, going from $1.9M in annual recurring revenue, to $5M.

They’re a team of four and 100% bootstrapped, making their results even more impressive.

Over 10,000 businesses use their tool to take financial documents (invoices, receipts, etc.) and convert them into formats like .CSV and .XLS (Excel), or for other platforms like Sage and Quickbooks.

Pricing starts at [redacted] to convert 200 documents and goes up to [redacted] to convert 2,000 documents if you pay annually. Higher pricing plans also have additional benefits like longer data retention and API access.

Update: Around a week after this report went live, the person who shared these numbers with me (someone who works at the company) revealed they didn’t have permission to go into the specifics of the business from its founder.

Just to clarify things from my end, I was contacted by this company first and didn’t reach out to them, and was thanked for covering them after the report went live. I’m only saying this as the last thing I ever want to do is try to “push” for revenue numbers or go through Companies House data or similar. That’s not at all my style.

I’m very picky about what goes into these reports, and very appreciative of anyone who shares numbers with us. That said, taking down the company name, as requested, is the right thing to do. I’ve also removed their name from the screenshot URL, just to be safe. These reports are also not visible in the Internet Archive.

Resend, a SaaS for Sending Transactional Emails, Raised $18M in December (And Already Has 200,000 Users in Just 18 Months)

December 4th saw the news that the “email for developers” platform, Resend, raised an $18M Series A. They previously raised a $3M Seed round in July of 2023.

Their open-source project, React Email, recently surpassed 14,000 stars on GitHub and more than 200,000 weekly users. This probably plays a huge part in introducing their paid service to their target audience.

Resend looks to help companies with every aspect of the email-sending process, from dedicated IPs to blocklist tracking, DMARC verification and easy integration into their current software stack.

Customers include Warner Brothers, Raycast, Nuxt, Vercel and Decathlon.

Peter Askew Reveals He Generated $50,000 in Profit with DudeRanch.com for 2024

I’ve spoken on and off with Peter Askew over the years. He’s probably one of the most interesting, humble entrepreneurs on the planet and owns Onions.com as just one of his many claims to fame.

I won’t claim to know much about the culture of dude ranches, but understand they’re essentially cattle ranches which have been converted into vacation resorts.

Dude Ranch aims to help you find the perfect ranch for your next getaway, allowing you to filter by activities you would like to partake in such as fishing, golf, hiking and kayaking.

I appreciate the unique look Peter gives to each of his sites, actually matching the theme of what it covers rather than going for anything too minimalist.

Although the numbers aren’t crazy (around 10,000 visitors from search per month), from an outside perspective it looks like Google updates have been kind to him in 2024. I’m happy to type that because it’s exactly the kind of site I think should rank well.

AI Plagiarism Checker Copyleaks Grew Revenue 199% in 2024 (And Released A Patent-Pending Feature I Think Will Be Popular)

Placing 330th on the Inc 5000 for 2024, Copyleaks‘ AI-based plagiarism detector grew revenue massively for the year.

We don’t know their exact financials but companies must be generating at least $2M/yr to be on the Inc. list, and most estimates put them at making around double that.

One feature they highlighted in their 2024 wrap-up was not only showing how much of a document appears to be AI-generated but which specific sentences are questionable, and why they think so.

It’s possible I missed it but I haven’t seen that feature elsewhere. Copyleaks claim it’s their original idea, and it’s patent-pending.

Initially launched in English, the feature is now available in Spanish, German, Portuguese, French and Italian.

With Over 100,000 Developers Already Using Their Voice AI, Vapi Raises $20M

In our November income report I introduced PlayAI, which had just raised $21M to become the platform for AI voice agents.

Now Vapi is following that up with a similar offering and a similar funding amount, raising $20M to help developers build and deploy voice agents.

In their announcement, they shared that they’re already handling millions of monthly calls for their customers, with one of the core aims of their solution being that a small business would never miss a critical call.

They also envision a world where anyone can call up a personal AI tutor in any language at any time of day and want to help facilitate that. It’s not too dissimilar to what eSelf are building (#10 in this report) with their video characters.

It would be crazy to even think about this just a few years ago but the technology is here already.

Digitalbox Expect Their Content Sites to Have Generated £3.5M in 2024, And They’ve Just Acquired a Soap News Blog for £50,000

If you follow me on social media (I’m here on X & LinkedIn), you’ve likely seen me cover Digitalbox a few times over the past two years.

I’m fascinated by any public company that runs content sites, especially those reliant on ranking well in Google, which Digitalbox has commented on numerous times.

One week before Christmas they announced the acquisition of Walford News, which covers the latest happenings for a popular British TV soap, Eastenders.

(If you grew up in the UK like myself, you’ve probably seen more episodes of Eastenders than you would like to admit, and you’re probably amazed it’s still running).

Named after the area where the soap is set, the site has almost no visible branding and a few obvious improvements for its new owners (it’s not a huge deal, but I wouldn’t have a prominent “0 comments” label on every single article — at least not on the homepage).

Walford News built up a Facebook following of more than 475,000, which was likely a big appeal to Digitalbox which has other active brands on the platform. I’m always interested in content sites being acquired so hopefully it was a great outcome for the seller.

Beautiful Hotel Booking Platform Safara Raised $14M and Acquired One of Their Rivals in the Process

Safara offers something you’ll be very familiar with on countless other platforms: The ability to book hotels.

How they try to stand out is with their cashback program, where they share their own booking commissions with users of the platform.

There are definitely some tweaks they need to make – I found the platform slow and featuring a lot of blurry (non-retina optimised) graphics – but for the most part the user experience is a welcome one.

Their site is so minimalist at times that individual hotel pages don’t even include a website footer (at least I think that’s intentional).

We don’t know how much their Sequoia and Defy.vc-led raise in December was for, but we know they’ve raised $14M to date.

They also acquired Skipper, an online booking engine, which they will look to combine with their main brand.

They’re entering one of the most competitive spaces online, but there’s so much demand that they might just make a name for themselves.

With a Legal Disclaimer in Their Logo, This eCommerce Store Surpassed 100,000 Orders Ranking in Google for Another Brands Products

Entrepreneur Chris Koerner revealed in December that his website, Texas Snax, has surpassed 100,000 orders thanks to ranking in Google for another company’s products.

(He passed the milestone a few months ago, but only mentioned it last month).

I’ve never been to a Buc-ee’s but I’ve been led to believe there’s a bit of a cult following behind the chain of convenience stores.

Chris says his website ranks for terms like:

• Buc-ee’s merch
• Buc-ee’s beef jerky
• Buc-ee’s shirts
• Buc-ee’s snacks

He’s even on the first page of Google for their brand name.

Speaking of which, this might be the first time I’ve seen a legal disclaimer as part of a website’s logo.

It looks like Buc-ees are more than fine with what Chris is doing, as he thanks them for being an “amazing and accommodating collaborator.”

While he has undoubtedly been helped by Buc-ee’s lack of their own online store, I have to admire him for not only having the idea, but taking massive action on it as well.

Is there a popular offline store in your city / country that doesn’t have an online presence?

You’ll likely need some legal disclaimers of your own, but it might be something to look into.

Well done, Chris and Kirk.

UK’s Lawhive Raises $40M to Bring Their Legal Marketplace to the US, So What Happens to Their .co.uk Domain?

If you saw our November income report and scrolled to the bottom, you will have noticed the option for Gaps newsletter subscribers to get additional insights.

Subscribing is free, and I’ll never spam you, but I’ll still tell you that one of the insights behind that password requirement was a list of website redirects we’re tracking.

(You can see an updated version of that list at the end of this report, too).

With my SEO background I can’t help but be fascinated by how Google “reacts” when a company changes domain names or points some great links to a new domain.

Lawhive.co.uk has greatly increased its presence in Google in the past year (if third-party tools are accurate) so I’m very curious if they want to risk that with a domain change. They’ve said they will use the additional funding to help expand into the US market, and a .co.uk domain extension doesn’t really align with that.

I always blur our numbers to be respectful if they’re not necessary.

A lot of their new traffic is going to informational content, sure, but they have some great calls to action within it. Similarweb also estimates that search accounts for more than half of their website visitors.

Not every domain redirect has negative consequences, of course, and I’ve tracked my fair share of sites where traffic significantly increased after changing domains. Still, in this case, I’m going to guess they own lawhive.com and plan to build that out, rather than potentially impact what’s already working well.

This Content Site Helping Teach Women How to Dress Is Generating $375,000/Yr

Kit founder Nathan Barry shared an interview with Corina Holder in December, who revealed her business now generates around $375,000 in annual revenue.

Her website, Now That I Can Do, helps women put together new outfits with what they already have in their wardrobe.

Corina’s site offers several different membership levels and PDFs, all priced around the $30-$50 range.

The brand is technically two sites, since the shop on NTICD takes you to FrumpFighters.com, and the content section on the latter takes you back to the former.

I love seeing genuine, focused businesses like these succeed.

Retellio Raised $1.3M for One of the Most Interesting AI Use Cases I’ve Ever Seen (Private Podcasts for CEOs)

Retellio caught my eye in December with a business idea I had never seen before.

Retellio essentially monitors all company calls – like sales calls and customer support calls – and turns them into a 30-minute weekly podcast so business leaders can stay on top of what is happening in their business.

AI is then used to spot trends, common issues and important discussions to include in each summary.

It’s not a substitute for CEOs to be “in the weeds” in other ways, but I think it’s a great addition to that.

I imagine they’re going to face an uphill battle with marketing, purely because they need to educate people on what I believe is a new AI use case.

If they can get leaders to listen to a single “episode” however, they might just have them hooked.

In December We Added Six Reports Covering 86 Different Startups (We’re Still Aiming to Cover 50+ Industries)

As I’ve said a few times, what you see on Gaps right now is only a small part of what we’re planning to launch.

We’re slowly but surely making a dent into our product roadmap, and can’t wait to share more features going forward.

That said, our overarching goal is to cover every interesting revenue report and funding round on the planet, so we’re continuing to publish reports on exactly that.

The reports we added in December are:

• AI Content Report: 18 startups generating $1.2M in MRR
• Customer Support Report: 17 startups generating $66M in MRR
• Cybersecurity Report: 10 startups generating $62.8M in MRR
• Design Report: 12 startups generating $4.6M in MRR
• Finance Report: 15 startups generating $560M in MRR
• Human Resources (HR) Report: 14 startups generating $806M in MRR

And this doesn’t include the dozens of updates we made to existing reports during the month.

We’re still missing some big industries (like Gaming) but our Industry Reports page is growing weekly.

I still need to make that page look a little less boring, so that’s on my list as well.

Eyva.ai Raised €2.7M for Their Market Research Platform That Highlights Ingredients From Trending Beauty Products

Eyva aims to help those in the beauty and personal care industry to monitor competitor pricing, social media buzz and the ingredients that make up their trending products.

They’ve essentially taken what you can find on broader, eCommerce-focused research platforms (pricing, new product launches, etc.) and focused on a single, popular niche.

This niching down will allow them to nail their messaging and the platform features that make the cut.

I wouldn’t be surprised if one day I’m reporting on other companies doing something similar for the sports niche, furniture space, fashion industry and more.

If anyone from Eyva is reading this, just a heads up that if you look at the above screenshot of your site you’ll notice a typo in the fourth menu item.

Social Media Scheduling Tool Buffer Has Added Another $1M in ARR in Just 4 Months

You may remember that we covered Buffer in our October income report, highlighting that they had fallen below (then grown past) $19M in ARR for the second time.

People seemed to like that it wasn’t your typical success story where a revenue chart continues going up to the right, but they’re heading back in that direction.

As a disclaimer, I’ve consulted with Buffer via Detailed.com but have had no arrangements with them for a few years.

What’s interesting is that not only is Buffer increasing their revenue, but their growth rate is accelerating.

Founder Joel Gascoigne shared that it took 7 months to go from $18M to $19M in annual recurring revenue and just 4 months to go from $19M to $20M.

Buffer currently has a team of 73, which is 13 people fewer than when they previously hit the same revenue milestone.

SmartAC.com Has Now Raised $42M for a SaaS Business Model I Could See Working Well in a Lot of Other Industries

December introduced me to a startup called SmartAC, thanks to receiving new investment from Mercury Fund. While the amount was not disclosed, their total funding is estimated to now be at $42M.

SmartAC offers plumbing and HVAC contractors the ability to retain customers by providing a custom-branded app that makes it easy for them to contact their original service provider.

Technicians are alerted when products have issues or they’re due for regular maintenance, and customers get easy access to someone who already knows their home set-up and with whom they (presumably) had a good experience.

Other industries in which I could see this business model working well include:

• Pool service and maintenance
• Pest control
• Home security systems
• Landscaping and garden care

There’s an AI diagnostic element to SmartAC’s business so this would have to be modeled on something that benefits from monitoring throughout the year.

Things less likely to be ongoing jobs (interior design, furniture assembly, etc.) probably wouldn’t be a good fit.

This SaaS for Shopify Users Has Surpassed $2.5M in ARR, Adding 20% of That In Just the Past 90 Days

Stuart Chaney, the founder and CEO of Rivo, revealed the company has grown by 96% in 2024 (and there were still a few weeks left to improve that number when he shared it).

Rivo offers multiple tools for eCommerce store owners, but the primary one seems to be their loyalty program, allowing Shopify stores to offer points for every purchase.

Other tools they offer store owners include a customised sign-in page which shows customers items they’ve recently viewed and those that are currently popular.

Over 7,000 stores are on board including HexClad, Ridge, Kitsch and True Classic.

Local News Site The Baltimore Banner, Launched in 2022, Generated More than $13M in 2024

Adweek shared the news that The Baltimore Banner grew revenue by 37% in 2024, with subscription revenue being their largest source of income.

While their revenue numbers are incredible for a website that only launched two and a half years ago, this isn’t your typical success story.

The site launched with a $50M pledge and 42 employees looking to grow the nonprofit into the most popular resource covering Baltimore, Maryland. The city’s population was 585,000 as of 2020, making it the 30th-most popular in the United States.

Adweek’s report revealed the news site has attained over 55,000 paying subscribers but is not yet profitable.

Standard pricing is $19.99 for four weeks access, but there’s a very enticing offer for new members — just $1 for six months.

Onfolio, The World’s Most Relatable Public Company, Sells Their WordPress Plugin Business for $780,000

In our November income report I introduced Onfolio, which I coined as being one of the most relatable public companies out there in terms of having a portfolio of websites I’m more likely to build myself.

People who weren’t familiar with Onfolio previously seemed to really enjoy learning about them which I loved to see. I want to introduce you to as many companies as possible that inspire what you have going on.

Just after the report went live they put out a press release announcing the sale of their ‘BWPS WordPress Business’ for $780,000.

In their announcement they stated,

The Company expects to record a capital gain of approximately $150,000 from the sale. For the fiscal year ended 12/31/2023, the BWPS WordPress business generated approximately $360,000 in revenue and $200,000 in unaudited adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (“EBITDA”).

Neither Onfolio nor Webstreet (the acquirer) made it specifically clear which plugins were involved in the sale, but being the annoying friend that I am, I reached out to Dom Wells (Onfolio’s founder & CEO) for some details.

Dom confirmed the two plugins were Prevent Direct Access (pictured above) and Password Protect for WordPress.

BRM Raised $15M to Deploy AI ‘SuperAgents’ That Help You Manage the SaaS Tools You’re Paying For

Is your next Slack payment due soon?

Do you need a new SOC 2 report from Loom?

Does finance need to approve your Asana sign-up?

These are all scenarios you’ll see on the homepage of BRM, a vendor management platform that has just raised a $15M Series A, bringing their total funding to date to $21.6M.

One way BRMs “SuperAgents” aim to help you cut costs is by pointing out situations where you’re paying for licenses but aren’t actually using them.

Unfortunately, no pricing is available on their website, so it’s a case of having to sign up for a demo to know how much it will set you back.

This is Getting Interesting: Tenor Raises $5.4M to Put Their Own Spin on a Trend We Pointed Out Two Months Ago

In our first-ever earnings report, we covered three companies that had collectively raised $50M+ to essentially do the same thing: Help sales reps practice their pitching with AI.

The three specific companies, and a quote from their websites, were:

• Fully Ramped: “Train your reps faster with AI role play”
• Avarra: “Our AI avatars are trained using your own data and behave like real prospects”
• Nooks: “AI bots that simulate actual prospect conversations.”

Instead of helping sales reps, Tenor is designed for anyone in leadership to practice their communication skills by roleplaying scenarios with AI characters.

I get that there may be concerns for the future of society when so many tools are cutting out standard human interaction, but I can also see the immense potential in them.

Not everyone who gets into a managerial position is a natural for the role or fully prepared. If the AI counterpart is “human enough”, actual humans are likely to benefit from a more competent leader on their team.

None of the four companies in this section reveal pricing on their website, and all request users to book a demo first. If that changes, I’ll cover it in a future update.

Doola’s CEO Confirms The Business Formation Startup is Generating $1M in ARR

A while back I was looking for information on how much money Doola was generating and saw an April 2024 article from HubSpot where the founder mentioned reaching $1M in ARR.

HubSpot actually invested $1M in the company, bringing their total funding to $13M. (Pro tip: Raise funding from HubSpot because they will cover you a ton on their website).

Arjun confirmed in a December 2024 LinkedIn post the business is still generating $1M in ARR. To be fair, that might be $1.1M or $1.9M.

Doula’s “business in a box” solution allows people to start a US business from anywhere in the world, then continues support with bank account set-up, booking and tax filing.

Pricing starts at $297/yr for their starter package, with their ‘Total Compliance Max’ plan costing $329/m or $2,999/yr. State fees are an additional expense for each option.

Stripe Atlas is one of the most prominent solutions with a similar offering and then of course there’s publicly listed LegalZoom as well.

Sekai Raised a $3.1M Seed Round to Use AI to Animate Stories for Social Media

The homepage of Sekai is as simple as you get: Start with a brief idea, and Sekai will help you create an animated video on that topic.

They may have taken simplicity too far as the homepage doesn’t really give you much idea what the platform does (which is why I didn’t include only their homepage in the screenshot below).

Their Explore tab is far more helpful, where you can see other stories members have created and then sort them by character type and location.

In our November income report I covered StoryShort AI which has quickly passed the $10,000 (then $14,000) monthly recurring revenue mark.

In that write-up I noticed I’m not the target audience for these kind of videos but I know there’s a large one. That sentiment follows me here as well.

There’s nothing about what Sekai produces that makes me want to watch more, but that’s nothing against them. Their videos aren’t made for me.

Custom ChatGPT SaaS Chatbase Grew MRR from $228,000 to $392,000 in 2024

Chatbase founder Yasser Elsaid shared his end-of-year roundup recently, revealing he failed to hit his goal of $1M in MRR, but still grew revenue 71% year over year.

Chatbase allows anyone to import their own data to train AI to handle different use cases, primarily by responding to user queries.

It then adds an additional layer on top with design customisation, lead collection and integration with the likes of Zapier and Google Drive.

Yasser was one of the first people to publicly jump on the trend of AI chatbots and while he’s not at the revenue level he hoped for, the numbers are still very impressive.

Ecomtent is Betting GEO is the Next SEO, Raising $1.4M to Help Companies Rank High in ChatGPT Search, Google Gemini and Amazon RUFUS

London-based Ecomtent secured £1.1M (~$1.4M USD) in funding in December, a quick addition to the £650,000 they raised just three months earlier.

The company aims to help eCommerce stores with their product listings so that their items can rank higher on AI-powered search platforms.

They’re betting that GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) will be the next SEO, and use AI to help create product listing copy and images.

Their homepage specifically mentions ChatGPT Search and Google Gemini, but I couldn’t find much else on their website to state how they help there. The service seems to almost exclusively focus on Amazon RUFUS and its COSMO algorithm.

(This focus makes sense, since co-founder Max Sinclair is a former Amazon executive).

It will be interesting to see if they expand on this going forward, or whether their aim is simply to help specific Amazon listings rank higher in these emerging search engines.

I Spoke With the Photographer Who Reveals How Much He Makes Selling on Stock Photo Sites

It has been a nice surprise to see that people are really interested in how much photographer Alexandre Rotenberg is generating online.

I especially like that he breaks down his income via each specific channel.

Combined, here are the latest numbers he earns from stock photo sites like Dreamstime and DepositPhotos:

• September, 2024: $840
• October, 2024: $795
• November, 2024: $1,377
• December, 2024: $477

There was a point in one of his monthly reports where he said something along the lines of quitting the business if the numbers didn’t improve. I was able to ask him about specifically that,

The beauty of my industry is that even if I quit and never upload another image or video again I’ll still earn for years to come (until the assets run their course in a few years and sales diminish significantly). So when I say I’ll quit I’ll just stop uploading.

I don’t tend to look at the results of any given month with much seriousness as the industry is quite unpredictable. Instead I look at the big picture on a yearly basis. Having said that, despite uploading new content regularly my results have stagnated for the past 3 years and are down something like 30% from the 2019 peak.

I’m investing heavily in creating book covers which I enjoy and when they do sell they sell for on average of 300x what a normal microstock sale brings in, although volumes are obviously much lower.

For 2025 I’ll continue to focus on creating book covers as well as flying my drone regularly capturing regular aerial footage which has a premium attached to it.

Note: I edited some sentences for brevity and emphasis on one was my own.

I really appreciate Alexandre taking the time to reply and share his story, and hope you find it interesting.

As bsport Raises €30M for Its Boutique Studio Management SaaS, I’m Starting to Get Really Into This Business Model

As we build out the Gaps database (lots is happening behind the scenes), I try to find trends in the mass of revenue reports and funding rounds from around the world.

One trend I can’t ignore – and actually find super interesting – is how many companies there are helping niche-specific businesses with their operations.

bsport (they always write their name lowercase) has raised a €30M Series B for one of the most niche iterations of them all.

Their software helps studios offering instruction for yoga, pilates, boxing, martial arts and similar interests, as well as manage memberships and admin work to grow their revenue.

With so many companies to track, it’s probably time we create a table covering the business model as a whole.

Startup	Simple Description	Recent Funding
bsport	Helps boutique studios manage their daily operations	€30M Series B
JobNimbus	CRM for roofing business owners and contractors	$330M
Mangomint	Helps salons and spas manage their daily operations	$35M Series B
Semble	Helps healthcare companies manage their practice	$15.3M Series B
Archy	Helps power your entire dental practice	$15M Series A

What’s interesting to me is that so many companies are operating in each niche and so many niches we’ve yet to cover. I have a feeling we’re going to create a big report solely on this topic one day.

Please let me know (feedback links at the end of this report) if that’s something you would be interested in.

I Stuck to My Promise of 36 Insights, But Here’s Four More (Free) for Gaps Readers

Note: If you get the password once, you’ll be able to use it on every future Gaps report.

You support the future of this media company – where we’re trying to become 1% of the Financial Times – and I get to give you more insights in return.

I don’t want to hype this up too much, but I will say I didn’t write 6,500+ words for free in the open, just to end this report with a boring bonus section.

The right way to approach this is that I want people to actively look forward to this bonus section each month.

I Want to Build Gaps Into 1% of the Size of The Financial Times, and Would Love Your Help to Get There (+ Links to Discuss This Report)

It’s my dream to be able to write and share these reports every month, but as a team of three we don’t have a ton of time to market them.

There’s still a ton of features we have in development that I can’t wait to share (our new SEO stock market page got a great reaction, but that’s just scratching the surface).

I might be totally wrong, but I think if we truly care about making these reports insightful, we’ll have people who want to read them. Hopefully it shows how much effort goes into these, but I actually feel very lucky to have the chance to write them.

If you found any value in this at all, sharing it on social media would be sincerely appreciated. Here are direct links to discuss this report on X (Twitter), LinkedIn and Facebook.

And if you’re not the sharing type, you can DM me with feedback via those same links.

Or even better, reply to the first email when you subscribe to our email list below (hey, if you don’t ask and all that…).

Thank you so much for giving me a chance with this new venture.

– Glen Allsopp

P.S. Here are the links again to discuss the report on X (Twitter), LinkedIn and Facebook.