Kit (ConvertKit)
Almost shut down at $1,330 MRR, invested last $50K, and bootstrapped to $43.8M ARR
kit.comAnnual Revenue
$43.8M
MRR
$3.65M
Team
140+ employees (100% remote)
Funding
Bootstrapped
Founder
Nathan Barry
Founder & CEO
Invested his last $50K when ConvertKit was at $1,330 MRR and nearly dead — that bet turned into a $43.8M ARR company
What Kit (ConvertKit) Does
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is an email marketing platform purpose-built for creators — bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, musicians, authors, and online educators. While Mailchimp targets small businesses and HubSpot targets enterprises, Kit carved out the creator niche with features designed for audience building: visual automation workflows, tag-based subscriber management (no lists), landing pages, commerce tools for selling digital products, and a Creator Network for cross-promotion. The platform serves 49,000+ paying customers and processes billions of emails monthly. What makes Kit's story remarkable isn't the product — it's the near-death experience. In late 2014, ConvertKit was languishing at $1,330 MRR after a year of half-hearted effort. Nathan Barry made the pivotal decision to invest his last $50,000 and go all-in with direct sales outreach, personally convincing bloggers to switch from Mailchimp. That desperation-fueled pivot turned a dying side project into one of the largest bootstrapped SaaS companies ever built.
Revenue Highlights
- From $1,330 MRR (nearly dead) to $43.8M ARR — entirely bootstrapped
- 49,000+ paying customers
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