← All shelves
Still here after 15 years
Founded 2011 or earlier and still running. Survival is a fact; hype is not.
35 teardowns · $1M–$10MEvery teardownFortressesEasy to copy. Won anyway.Built on rented landNumbers straight from a filingDoesn't scale. On purpose.Still here after 15 yearsOne-time money
HiddenLevers
SaaS
The risk tool advisors used to keep clients calm.
$8M
Stated · ARR at 2021 exit
Copyable math, finite US advisor market
★ The edge: Reframed copyable analytics as an advisor client-retention product — then 10x'd the price to prove it.
Open →
Empire Flippers
Marketplace
Buy & sell online businesses — vetting is the moat.
$7.2M
Estimate · 2024 · founder-stated
⚠ No recurring rev
lumpy, deal-by-deal
lumpy, deal-by-deal
★ The edge: Flipping sites wasn't new — they made it safe: every listing vetted, every handover done by their team.
Open →
BiggerPockets
Community
Real estate's town square — a free forum, 3M+ members.
$7M
Estimate · 2016 rev · last public
⚠ Need cyclical
under 1% pay
under 1% pay
★ The edge: Dorkin kept the forum free for years before charging — trust and UGC compounded into a moat rivals can't buy.
Open →
Ticket Tailor
SaaS
Event ticketing at a flat fee, not a % of the sale.
$6.6M
Estimate · revenue, 2024 (est)
No audience network — bring your own crowd.
★ The edge: Flat $0.30-$0.85 a ticket, never a % of price. An $80 ticket costs cents here vs about $7 on Eventbrite.
Open →
Balsamiq
SaaS
Ugly-on-purpose wireframes designers keep paying for
$6.58M
Stated · 2024 revenue
Figma now does low-fi; TAM is shrinking
★ The edge: Wireframes look hand-drawn on purpose: every mockup is instantly recognizable and markets the tool for free.
Open →
Ratsit
Data
Swedish tax data is public. Ratsit sells the search.
SEK 56.2M
Filed · about $5.8M · FY2025 revenue, 6 staff
One law change ends the whole model.
★ The edge: A constitutional publishing licence puts Ratsit's database outside GDPR, so nobody can demand deletion.
Open →
Flowcase (ex CV Partner)
SaaS
The CV tool consultancies renew 98% of the time.
$5.5M ARR
Stated · ARR, founder-stated (2024)
AI proposal tools could absorb the niche.
★ The edge: Turned a manual Word chore — building consultant CVs for tenders — into a bid tool firms won't drop.
Open →
Less Annoying CRM
SaaS
The anti-Salesforce CRM for small business.
$5.4M
Estimate · 2024 rev · founder-stated
Simple CRM is easy to copy; low lock-in.
★ The edge: One flat $15/user price, no tiers, no lock-in, and real people answer support — rare in a CRM market.
Open →
Boardroom Insiders
Data
Deep C-suite dossiers, licensed to B2B sales teams.
$5M
Stated · ARR at $25M exit
Hand-written data; scaling means hiring.
★ The edge: 14 years and a 25-person research team built 29,000 deep exec profiles rivals couldn't scrape or fake.
Open →
InvoiceASAP
SaaS
$9/mo invoicing app, now $80/mo on embedded payments.
Just under $5M
Stated · annual rev, SaaS + payments
Payment partners can change terms anytime.
★ The edge: Owns the payments, not just the invoice, so it earns a cut of every job instead of a flat monthly fee.
Open →
MoveitPro
SaaS
Movers ran on typewriters. He sold them the fix.
$5M ARR
Stated · founder-stated ARR, Nov 2022
Biggest lead source is $10K/mo of Google ads.
★ The edge: Third-generation mover. He funded five years of development out of the family moving company's profits.
Open →
WebMerge
SaaS
Solo, $5M ARR, sold for $100M.
$5M+ ARR
Stated · ARR at sale · one employee
One narrow job a platform could absorb.
★ The edge: It lived in other apps' add-on marketplaces, so it grew on their distribution while one person kept the margins.
Open →
WeSuite
SaaS
Quoting software for security-system installers.
$5M
Stated · 2024 revenue · cash exit
Tiny niche: 16 years to reach $5M.
★ The edge: Ex-integrators built the one quoting tool that models security installs, recurring monitoring and commissions.
Open →
DashThis
SaaS
Bought out the CEO, then sold for low 8 figures
$4.7M
Stated · revenue at 2023 sale
One narrow job in a crowded reporting market.
★ The edge: Priced by dashboard count, not seats — an agency with 25 client reports pays for 25, and upgrades as it wins clients.
Open →
C
ClickClaims
SaaS
The claims desk for storm-chasing insurance adjusters.
$4M+
Stated · ARR · 50 accounts
Tiny buyer pool, revenue rides the storms.
★ The edge: A claims adjuster who'd already built claims software inside a big firm — he knew the workflow before line one.
Open →
Valkre
SaaS
The account plan, out of PowerPoint and into software.
Beyond $4M ARR
Stated · KAM software subscriptions
Slow category to build; the niche is small.
★ The edge: Valkre wraps the SAMA method KAM teams already train on, so enterprises trust the tool before the demo.
Open →
Cronometer
Data
The accuracy-obsessed answer to MyFitnessPal.
$3.8M
Estimate · Latka estimate, 2024
Free apps count calories fine for casuals.
★ The edge: Food data from lab-verified USDA and NCCDB databases, not crowd entries, so every number earns trust.
Open →
Wall Street Oasis
Community
Free finance forum that sells interview courses.
$300K/mo
Stated · founder-stated · 2020
⚠ Control low
rides on Google traffic
rides on Google traffic
★ The edge: A forum earns pennies on ads; he stacked a niche ad network + paid courses on the same audience.
Open →
Geocaching.com
Community
A GPS treasure hunt, sold as a subscription.
3.4M+
Stated · active geocaches worldwide
Unpaid volunteers keep the whole map alive.
★ The edge: Users hide and maintain every cache free; Groundspeak owns the one global database and charges to search it well.
Open →
PerformLine
SaaS
It reads your affiliates' ads before the regulator does.
$3.2M
Estimate · 2021 ARR, self-report
Demand rises and falls with enforcement.
★ The edge: Brands are liable for affiliate ads they never see. PerformLine auto-discovers those hidden channels and scores them.
Open →
Silktide
SaaS
The free accessibility checker that upsells compliance.
$3M/yr
Estimate · 2024 ARR (Latka est.)
Axe and AI commoditize the core scan.
★ The edge: Twenty years of free scanners built the top-of-funnel; regulation (EAA, ADA) now forces every site through it.
Open →
Towbook
SaaS
Dispatch, impound and billing for tow companies.
$2.9M
Estimate · Est. ARR 2024 (Latka)
Niche TAM ceiling; the code is copyable
★ The edge: Run a tow company's dispatch, impounds and billing through one app and switching costs quietly become the moat.
Open →
Sharetribe
SaaS
The no-code platform behind 1,000+ marketplaces.
$2.4M
Stated · ARR (2023, founder)
No-code ceiling: buyers outgrow it and churn.
★ The edge: Ran a marketplace before selling the tool to build one — operator instincts rivals lack, plus a vow never to sell.
Open →
Equipe
SaaS
Europe's horse shows run on a three-person company
SEK 22.6M
Filed · about $2.2M · FY25 turnover, filed
Near-total at home, so fee rises make news
★ The edge: In 2015 it dropped the flat fee and billed about EUR 1 per start. Small clubs could afford it; Europe adopted it.
Open →
Moraware
SaaS
The default software for countertop fabrication shops.
$2.2M
Estimate · ARR, Latka est. 2025
Countertop-only market caps growth.
★ The edge: A co-founder's brother ran a countertop shop, so v1 was built inside a real fabricator's daily workflow.
Open →
Ministry of Testing
Community
Where software testers gather, learn, and get hired.
$1.2M
Stated · a year (2019, stated)
Revenue leans on in-person conferences.
★ The edge: A free 2007 forum grew into testing's biggest community; she monetized the trust later via conferences and courses.
Open →
Beeminder
SaaS
The habit tracker that charges you when you fail.
$1M
Estimate · ARR (2024, est.)
Paying to be punished repels the masses.
★ The edge: Rivals sell success. Beeminder gets paid the moment you fail — your own procrastination is the meter.
Open →
BetaList
Marketplace
The startup directory that charges you to skip its line.
$1M
Stated · cumulative over 10 years
Entry low
directory = a weekend clone
directory = a weekend clone
★ The edge: Turned its review backlog into 70% of revenue by charging startups to skip the queue.
Open →
Printavo
SaaS
A screen printer built the software his shop needed
$1M+ ARR
Stated · founder-stated, 2017
Thin tech moat — a dozen lookalike rivals
★ The edge: He ran a screen-print shop first, then built the tool for his own order chaos — an insider selling to insiders.
Open →
Wappalyzer
Data
Detects any site's tech, then sells the list.
$1M+
Stated · ARR, founder-stated
Closing the OSS core spawned free forks.
★ The edge: The free 2M-user extension crowdsources a live tech dataset rivals must crawl for — data as a byproduct.
Open →
iClassPro
SaaS
The software a gymnastics-gym owner built for himself.
$5.7M+ ARR
Estimate · Latka est.
Crowded niche; Jackrabbit pioneered it.
★ The edge: A national-champion coach who owned a gym built the tool he needed, then won schools on trust and support — not ads.
Open →
PredictWind
SaaS
America's Cup weather tech, sold to every sailor.
1M+
Stated · users (Dec 2023)
Free rivals like Windy commoditize the data.
★ The edge: Licensed the exact weather models that won the America's Cup, then sold them to every cruiser for $29-499 a year.
Open →
PriceCharting
Data
Turns every eBay sale into the price of every game.
3.5M
Stated · monthly users
Its whole dataset rents eBay's sale feed.
★ The edge: 18 years of completed eBay sales, auto-graded into the one price dealers quote — a time-series rivals can't rewind.
Open →
Ravelry
Community
Knitting's community — run profitably by about four.
9M+ members
Stated · revenue never disclosed
One niche · community-dependent
★ The edge: it earns from its own members (self-served ads) at about 3.5% — aligning beat taxing the crowd.
Open →
Shodan
Data
Google indexes web pages. Shodan indexes devices.
3M+
Stated · registered users
Key-person lean; Censys cloned it with VC.
★ The edge: A 15-year, continuously-crawled index of every service on the public internet — a dataset newcomers can't back-fill.
Open →