$291K a month teaching backend courses

How Boot Dev reached $291K Monthly revenue teaching backend courses

$291K a month teaching backend courses
Do not index
Do not index
Canonical URL
Hide CTA
Hide CTA
Related to Authors (1) (Content)
This is one of the most impressive revenue growth charts I’ve seen in a long time.
Look at the growth in the last 6 months 🔥
From $23K in June to $76K in August.
And from $76K in August to $291K in December.
Crazy!
notion image
This is the backend courses platform Boot Dev.
It’s a platform where students can learn backend development in a gamified manner, and become high skilled to get a job as a developer.
Their landing page makes their value proposition very clear -
notion image
I asked their founder (Lane Wagner) on Twitter, what has been the secret of their recent success. He shared 3 channels -
  • Podcast and YouTube appearances
  • Sponsoring creators
  • Organic SEO
This checks out from their similarweb data as well.
Their top traffic channels are Direct, Search and Social -
notion image
And their social traffic is 90% YouTube.
This would be a mix of podcasts, youtube interviews + sponsoring creators -
notion image
The most fascinating thing is their SEO strategy.
They rank for the keywords “[programing language] Playground” for most popular backend programming languages.
So when their ideal students search on Google, looking for an online playground environment to learn a language, Boot Dev’s playground pages show up.
notion image
(source: ubersuggest)
SEO is a slow strategy, but when it works, it pays off BIG!
Finally, I want to emphasize that this is NOT on overnight success.
I found this post on their Indie Hackers page quite inspiring -
notion image
Took them 2 years to reach $5K MRR.
Always remember -
  • It takes a while to get to find PMF
  • To find your positioning in the market
  • To figure out WHY users love you instead of the competition.
This is a long journey, and we need a ton of patience and grit. Just like Lane and his team.
Hope you found this useful.
Cheers 🙌

You don’t need more product

Last week Dmytro on Twitter asked that he’s managed to reach $1700 MRR in 2 years. Should he continue with the project or try out other bets. He got some great replies to that tweet, worth checking out.
My opinion is that he has a great product, it takes a lot of effort to get something past $1K MRR. This is NOT the time to give up.
But this is also not the time to build more product.
I think if you have something that’s making $1000 MRR then you have enough features to take it to $5K MRR. At least.
You just need to go all in on marketing.

Don’t run out of motivation

Loved this quote from Rob Walling’s latest book - The SaaS Playbook.
notion image
“Bootstrappers don’t run out of money, they run out of motivation”
So true!
I just finished reading the book this week, will write a short summary post soon.

That's it for today. Hope you found this useful.
If you did, please share it with a friend.
And do signup to receive more such posts every week in your inbox.

Useful links you don't want to miss -

🤗 How can I help?

Whenever you’re ready, consider joining the Indie Masterminds community. The goal of this newsletter is to inspire and motivate you, but the goal of the community is to help you take action and go to the next level in your journey.
So if you’re at that stage where you don’t need more inspiration, but you do need to take the right action, then come join us!
We’re here to help 🫂

Get 1 new actionable framework every week

Proven strategies for creators, indie hackers and solopreneurs. Read in less than 5 minutes every week. Sent to exclusively to 3100+ readers

Join for FREE
Ayush

Written by

Ayush

Eternally Curious. Writing, Learning, Building in Public. Writing about Ideas + Inspiration + Insights for creators, solopreneurs and indie hackers | Simple tips and frameworks to help you build a sustainable solo business

Related posts

$106K MRR - Upwork Lead Gen tool$106K MRR - Upwork Lead Gen tool
$293K ARR - stupidly simple bookmarking tool$293K ARR - stupidly simple bookmarking tool
$15K MRR selling peace of mind$15K MRR selling peace of mind
$150K MRR - Simple Form Builder$150K MRR - Simple Form Builder
$33K MRR - Simple email forwarding service$33K MRR - Simple email forwarding service
$33K MRR with a simple Slack bot$33K MRR with a simple Slack bot
$22K MRR - Simple “Link in Bio” tool$22K MRR - Simple “Link in Bio” tool
$31K MRR with a simple OCR app$31K MRR with a simple OCR app
$8K MRR SaaS with THIS framework$8K MRR SaaS with THIS framework
$100M Framework to identify your market$100M Framework to identify your market
$166K MRR - simple employee scheduling tool$166K MRR - simple employee scheduling tool
$704K MRR - Solo Founder SaaS$704K MRR - Solo Founder SaaS
$23k MRR - Stupidly simple PDF converter$23k MRR - Stupidly simple PDF converter
$19K MRR - SEO SaaS + service$19K MRR - SEO SaaS + service
0 to 8 figure exit in 18 months0 to 8 figure exit in 18 months
$34K MRR - Simple chatbot builder tool$34K MRR - Simple chatbot builder tool
$630K ARR - Simple API to generate images$630K ARR - Simple API to generate images
$32K MRR - Simple Analytics tool $32K MRR - Simple Analytics tool
$1M ARR with single page site builder$1M ARR with single page site builder
$6.8M ARR - Simple Blogging Tool$6.8M ARR - Simple Blogging Tool
$23K MRR with a simple todo list$23K MRR with a simple todo list
⛵$13K/m while living on a boat⛵$13K/m while living on a boat
❤️ $5800+ MRR Auto Swiping Tinder❤️ $5800+ MRR Auto Swiping Tinder
$700K a Year with SEO$700K a Year with SEO
📝 $32K MRR editing words📝 $32K MRR editing words
$3M MRR Bootstrapping in a competitve market$3M MRR Bootstrapping in a competitve market
$11000 MRR with a simple email app$11000 MRR with a simple email app
$15K MRR - simple AI video editing app$15K MRR - simple AI video editing app
$8K MRR - 1 Founder - 0 employees - $0 marketing spend$8K MRR - 1 Founder - 0 employees - $0 marketing spend
$3.5M ARR - simple form builder$3.5M ARR - simple form builder
$9K MRR Simple HTML to PDF Converter$9K MRR Simple HTML to PDF Converter
27 Best Micro SaaS Ideas to Build Right Now in 2024 (With REAL Examples)27 Best Micro SaaS Ideas to Build Right Now in 2024 (With REAL Examples)