8 Non-Technical Founders Making 6-Figures From Their App

Updated: November 9th, 2023

Something we commonly hear at Starter Story:

"I have an idea for an app, but I don't have the technical skills to build it, or enough money to hire a developer."

What if we told you there's another way? That you don't need to break the bank or learn how to code in order to bring your app to market.

In this post, we'll introduce you to 8 founders without a technical background who managed to build a successful app.

1. Aura ($2.4M/year)

Steve Lee is a non-techinical founder that started Aura over 5 years ago.

Revenue
$200K / month
Team
2 founders / 6 employees

Case Study
  • Steve Lee is the founder and CEO of Aura Health
  • Aura is a mobile app that anyone can use to reduce anxiety and improve sleep in just three minutes..
  • Aura was started two years ago. Today, it has several million users and is a frequent top ten in the App Store Health & Fitness category.
  • Right now, they are using two engineers from Crowdbotics full time.
  • They raised a Seed round and now have six people working in person full time in San Francisco.

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2. SkillSoniq ($480K/year)

Abby (Abhinav) Verma (from New York) started SkillSoniq almost 8 years ago.

Revenue
$40K / month
Team
1 founders / 7 employees

Case Study

My name is Abby and I am the founder of SkillSoniq. SkillSoniq is the world’s first AI-Powered recruiting app that connects companies with skilled, domestic freelancers and gives companies the option to hire a freelancer (s) on their payroll.

We currently cater to small companies with less than 200 employees, who feel the pain of hiring through traditional recruiting channels. We launched in New York in early 2019, and made $350,000+ in Gross Revenues in the first year of launch in 2019 without spending a single dime on advertising! We are currently making $40,000 a month in gross revenues. In just the first year of launch, we signed up more than 100 clients, boarded 6,000+ freelancers on our platform, and received 4.9/5.0 google review ratings from our customers.

how-i-started-a-40k-month-ai-powered-recruiting-app

3. Wavve ($1.2M/year)

Baird Hall (from Charleston, South Carolina, USA) started Wavve over 7 years ago.

Revenue
$100K / month
Team
3 founders / 0 employees
Location
Charleston, South Carolina, USA

Case Study

Howdy! I’m Baird. 👋🤠 I’m a sales guy that loves all things tech but can’t code (I tried. Not for me). I am also a marketer, but I’m not sure exactly how that came to be. I’m a husband and a dad. I love building companies that let me be those things more and provide value to others.

Over the past 3 years, we have bootstrapped the business to $75k in monthly recurring revenue. However, Wavve was born out of a failed startup that we tried to start before it.

how-we-launched-a-75k-month-audio-sharing-app-for-podcasters

4. Sckeem

Case Study
  • Sckeem is a finance management application that helps you plan and monitor your funds at a personal level.
  • Sckeem aims to help anyone who wants to take control of their finances and meet their financial goals.
  • Sckeem partnered with Crowdbotics to help build their app.

5. Resource Guru ($2.12M/year)

Andrew Rogoff (from London, England, United Kingdom) started Resource Guru over 13 years ago.

Revenue
$177K / month
Team
2 founders / 12 employees
Location
London, England, United Kingdom

Case Study

Hi, I’m Andrew Rogoff, one of the founders of Resource Guru, an online team calendar. Our software is used by around 20,000 people in 88 countries around the world to help them manage their team’s time.

Our customers include Apple, NASA, Uber, Saatchi & Saatchi, Cisco and AT&T (as well as a whole load of smaller ones). They use Resource Guru to keep track of who’s working on what and how busy their employees are. This means they can manage workloads efficiently and ensure that no-one is either overworked or getting bored because they don’t have enough to do.

how-we-built-a-resource-scheduling-app-to-2-1m-arr

6. BACH ($6M/year)

Mike Petrakis (from New York, NY, USA) started BACH about 5 years ago.

Revenue
$500K / month
Team
2 founders / 12 employees

Case Study

My name is Mike Petrakis - I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of BACH, an app that plans and books bachelor/ette parties.

Our customers are bachelorettes and their friends looking to have a memorable experience planned seamlessly and efficiently.

we-started-a-6m-year-bachelorette-party-app

7. Badger Maps ($5M/year)

Steven Benson (from San Francisco, California, USA) started Badger Maps over 12 years ago.

Revenue
$417K / month
Team
3 founders / 42 employees
Location
San Francisco, California, USA

Case Study

Hi Everyone, I’m Steve Benson and I’m the founder and CEO of Badger Maps.

I started the company 7 years ago, and today, we’re making $3.3 million a year and have 60 employees.

badger-maps-building-a-sales-route-planning-app-to-3-3m-arr

8. ARPU

Wilson Hung (from Toronto, Ontario, Canada) started ARPU about 6 years ago.

Team
3 founders / 0 employees
Location
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Case Study

I graduated with a Chemical Engineering degree and worked in the Oil & Gas industry for 3 years after school. Throughout my life, I’ve always had side businesses (selling shot glasses, creating HR videos, and a group dating website).

I reached out to my contacts at Dollar Shave Club and they were able to confirm to me how effective these types of emails were to increase revenues. At this point, I knew there was a solid business opportunity here. All I had to do was build it.

creating-a-6-figure-side-business-as-a-non-technical-founder

meet the author
Samantha Walls

I'm Sam Walls, COO of Starter Story - a platform and community for entrepreneurs and future founders to learn what it takes to build a great business. I joined the Starter Story team approximately 3 years ago, with the goal of providing our readers with the best, most valuable, and inspirational content on the internet.