10 Data Analytics Software Business Success Stories [2024]
Data analytics is a crucial aspect of an organization’s decision-making process. It involves the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data to gain insights and make informed decisions.
If you’re interested in starting a business in this field, the first step is identifying a particular industry or niche you want to serve.
Once you have a clear idea of your target market, you can begin developing user-friendly software that addresses that niche’s specific data analysis needs. This may involve creating custom reporting tools, dashboards, and other features that help your clients visualize and interpret their data.
Once your software is ready, you’ll need to market it effectively to potential clients. This may involve emphasizing the simplicity and efficiency of your tools and the value they bring to your client’s decision-making processes.
By focusing on your target market’s unique needs and challenges, you can build a successful data analytics business that delivers real value to your customers.
In this list, you'll find real-world data analytics software business success stories and very profitable examples of starting a data analytics software business that makes money.
1. Diesel Laptops ($50.4M/year)
Tyler Robertson, founder and CEO of Diesel Laptops, came up with the idea for his business while working at commercial truck dealerships. After seeing the complexity and cost of truck diagnostics, he found a software program in Canada that could make diagnostics easier, and started selling kits on eBay. This side business eventually became Diesel Laptops, a company that offers bundled kits, technical support, and repair information to the diesel industry.
How much money it makes: $50.4M/year
How many people on the team: 180
Diesel Laptops, a B2B company that sells diesel diagnostic hardware, software, and services, successfully doubled revenue each year to make $20 million annually within three years, grew from its founder's garage and dining room table to a 21,000 square foot facility with over 90 employees by listening to customer pain points and offering the bundled products, technical support and repair information to attract and retain diesel technicians and repair shop owners.
2. Attributer ($1.2M/year)
The founder, who worked in B2B marketing, couldn’t find a tool that showed which channels were converting leads, sales opportunities, and customers. So he built the tool himself, and recognizing its potential, he turned into full-time entrepreneurship.
How much money it makes: $1.2M/year
How much did it cost to start: $1K
How many people on the team: 0
Marketing attribution tool Attributer.io has generated $60k in annual recurring revenue just five months after launch, with a focus on search engine optimisation for high-intent keywords to acquire customers for the platform, offering a lesson in market-first startup development.
3. Helical Insight ($960K/year)
Nitin Sahu and his co-founder Nikhilesh Tiwari identified the pain points and limitations of existing BI products while providing services in the domain. They launched Helical Insight as an open-source BI product, attracting customers by showcasing how their product can solve their issues. They invested heavily in SEO and content marketing to generate inbound leads and focused on providing high-quality support to retain customers.
How much money it makes: $960K/year
How much did it cost to start: $20K
How many people on the team: 42
From several failed startups to building a $960k/year open-source BI business with 51+ clients, Helical Insight offers a B2B focused enterprise software product that can be used by any company generating data, boasting a client list including CA Technologies, Tata Communications, and Fractal Analytics, making a profit margin of 35%, with plans to partner in non-English speaking countries and to raise funding for development, hiring, sales, and expansion.
4. Songstats ($828K/year)
Oskar Eichler, co-founder of Songstats, came up with the idea for his business while working as a label manager and DJ in Shanghai. Being involved in the music industry, he recognized the value of data analytics for artists and record labels and wanted to provide a platform that aggregated insights across various music services. After teaming up with his co-founders, they built Songstats and now have over 6,000 customers generating almost $1 million in annual recurring revenue.
How much money it makes: $828K/year
How much did it cost to start: $400K
How many people on the team: 8
Songstats is a music data analytics SaaS platform that aggregates insights across 14 different music services, approaching $1 million in annual recurring revenue and growing its team of music lovers, ultimate frisbee players, and close friends that came together in Bali, Indonesia with a shared vision of launching their startup.
5. Trust Insights ($480K/year)
Katie, the CEO of Trust Insights, co-founded the company in 2017 after noticing a lack of transparency and understanding in the marketing industry when it came to data analysis. She wanted to change the culture and be a voice for those intimidated by advanced technology, focusing on marrying data analysis with change management. Through their services and customer relationships, Trust Insights has been successful in retaining long-term clients and building a community through their Free Slack Community, Analytics for Marketers.
How much money it makes: $480K/year
How much did it cost to start: $2K
How many people on the team: 0
Trust Insights is a digital marketing consultancy that focuses on data analysis, utilizing Artificial Intelligence to solve problems and help businesses understand how to use their data to their advantage, with a free Slack community that boasts over 2,500 members and a weekly email with over 20,000 subscribers.
6. Data Fetcher ($276K/year)
In 2020, Andy learned about a Google Sheets add-on called API Connector, which imports your data into a simple Google sheet.
Around the same time, Andy noticed the rise in popularity of Airtable.
Since Google Sheets and Airtable were close in compatibility, Andy decided to build a similar type of data integration tool for Airtable.
Andy’s 3-step method for coming up with ideas is helpful context for understanding how he came up with the idea: - Find a platform that is already growing massively. - Look at already successful tools for more mature platforms. - Build an equivalent tool for the new platform.
How much money it makes: $276K/year
How much did it cost to start: $100
How many people on the team: 0
Data Fetcher is a no-code tool that imports data into Airtable which has reached 190 paying customers in just over a year after launch and is making $6500 in MRR, with a goal of reaching $30k+ in MRR, for aspiring founders looking to bootstrap an app to life-changing revenue as a solo founder.
7. Ivee ($120K/year)
Chelsea Rhoads, the CEO/Co-Founder of pup-eeze, came up with the idea for the business after experiencing the difficulties of traveling with her dogs during a camping trip in 2008. Realizing the need for a device to ensure their safety, Chelsea and her co-founder developed Pup Alert in 2016. After encountering challenges with their hardware solution, they adjusted the concept and launched pup-eeze, a wellness tracker for dogs. They have since focused on creating an adjustable ecosystem for dogs' environments and have garnered support from the technology community.
How much money it makes: $120K/year
How much did it cost to start: $250K
How many people on the team: 3
Pup-eeze, a wellness tracker for dogs that tracks activity, monitors location and automates their lives, was created by Chelsea Rhoads and Elizabeth Hess after realizing how difficult it was to travel with dogs, and now has a consumer-facing application for pet owners to monitor their pets' data and visualize trends.
8. Lychee ($120K/year)
Misterr Pink launched Lychee, a modern data platform, after getting frustrated with cumbersome data analysis tools like Excel. In just two months, Lychee has amassed over 11,000 users and $10K in MRR.
How much money it makes: $120K/year
How much did it cost to start: $500
How many people on the team: 0
Misterr Pink's case study highlights the rapid growth of Lychee, a data platform that generated over 11,000 users and $10K in MRR within months through a strategic launch strategy combining AI boards, engaging with the audience on Reddit and Twitter, and continual product iterations.
9. Statful ($102K/year)
Statful was initially developed by Mindera, a tech services company, to meet their own need for a monitoring tool. They wanted a tool that could communicate what was happening in their applications to both developers and businesses. They found that existing tools in the market were either too expensive or required extensive deployment and maintenance. This led them to create Statful, a customizable monitoring platform that provides real-time data and flexibility for developers, operations, and business teams. Despite minimal investment in marketing and sales, Statful has gained six customers from various industries and reached an MRR of approximately $10,000.
How much money it makes: $102K/year
How much did it cost to start: $250K
How many people on the team: 5
Statful, a monitoring platform to track any type of metric, managed to get six customers and reach an MRR of approximately $10,000 without any real investments in marketing and sales.
10. Decidable ($12K/year)
Decidable, founded by Craig Smith and Mike Bugembe, was born out of their shared frustration with the low levels of insight adoption in businesses and the inability of leaders to harness the value of data. After collaborating on the vision of data storytelling, they developed a platform that automatically translates complex data into short, easy-to-read stories, enabling businesses to make informed decisions. The company's innovative products, such as automated Google Analytics stories and e-commerce data sources, have already helped beta customers increase daily revenue by 25-40%, demonstrating the impressive potential for growth.
How much money it makes: $12K/year
How much did it cost to start: $1M
How many people on the team: 2
Decidable has created an automated Google Analytics platform that helps UK e-commerce companies between £5m-£50m find all the missed revenue in their data with some of their Beta customers seeing daily revenue increases of between 25% - 40%.
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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