Esc
This Simple Widget Makes $50K/Month
Starter Story
Sep 20, 2026
Tom built a tiny widget that solves one painful problem. He launched it about 1 year ago, and today it makes $55K per month – 100% bootstrapped. This video is the story of how spotting one real problem and building the simplest possible solution turned into a real business.
90+ Million-dollar problems (business ideas): https://clickhubspot.com/tu8n
Say hi to Tom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-holliday-505469161/
Check out Avenue: https://www.avenue2.au/
Follow Avenue on IG: https://www.instagram.com/avenue2.au
🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild
🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs
This video is an educational case study of this founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.
Chapters
Stack
Transcript
Chapters
Stack
No tools listed for this business.
A
couple
of
nights
ago
I
was
scrolling
Twitter
like
I
usually
do
looking
for
ideas
when
I
came
across
this
An
anonymous
startup
making
over
40
000
a
month
launched
just
about
a
year
ago
I
was
interested
so
I
DM'd
the
guy
I
said
hey
cool
business
want
to
share
your
story
And
to
my
surprise
he
said
yes
My
name's
Tom
and
my
brother
and
I
built
Avenue
together
And
we
built
a
website
widget
for
trades
and
mechanics
This
is
Tom
and
he
built
a
really
simple
app
that
today
makes
over
50
000
a
month
But
when
I
dug
into
the
idea
with
him
and
asked
him
why
it
works
I
was
blown
away
I
did
the
one
thing
you're
not
meant
to
do
which
was
I
asked
Tom
to
come
onto
the
channel
and
break
it
all
down
for
us
And
in
this
episode
we're
going
to
dive
into
the
dead
simple
app
he
built
that
today
makes
over
50
000
a
month
the
growth
tactic
that
almost
nobody
is
using
that
helped
him
get
his
first
10
customers
and
why
he
built
an
app
in
a
category
that
almost
everyone
is
ignoring
I'm
excited
for
this
one
Let's
dive
in
I'm
Gus
and
this
is
Starter
Story
Tom
welcome
to
Starter
Story
Super
excited
to
have
you
on
the
channel
Could
you
tell
us
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
My
name's
Tom
and
my
brother
and
I
built
Avenue
together
with
a
team
We
do
85
000
a
month
in
revenue
now
in
Australian
dollars
And
we
built
a
website
widget
for
trades
and
electricians
and
mechanics
Today
I'm
excited
to
show
a
bit
more
about
how
we
got
to
where
we
are
and
what
we
do
Tom
that's
so
awesome
I'm
super
excited
to
talk
about
the
widget
aspect
of
this
the
trades
aspect
of
this
I
think
this
is
going
to
be
really
interesting
But
let's
take
a
quick
step
back
and
just
tell
us
about
Avenue
What
is
it
Who
are
your
customers
Pull
up
your
website
Tell
us
a
little
bit
about
the
business
Avenue
is
a
website
embed
So
it
goes
directly
onto
the
client's
website
It
just
offers
all
their
services
in
a
visual
way
That
way
they
can
kind
of
be
guided
through
to
a
purchase
or
even
put
through
an
inquiry
It
does
go
into
Google
reservations
as
well
So
we
go
into
their
Google
My
Business
profile
also
Cool
So
this
kind
of
looks
like
one
of
those
widgets
that
you
see
on
websites
to
help
you
book
a
call
call
with
somebody
or
I've
used
something
like
this
to
book
a
call
with
my
barber
Is
that
the
same
thing
or
is
it
a
little
bit
different
than
that
I
think
the
backend
is
very
fundamentally
different
because
of
the
automations
that
we've
built
for
them
But
yes
essentially
it's
solving
like
an
age
old
problem
I
have
money
I
want
to
buy
from
a
service
business
Why
do
I
have
to
call
them
Why
do
I
have
to
kind
of
send
them
an
email
Well
I
could
just
tell
them
what
I
want
All
right
Tom
This
seems
really
awesome
Just
tell
us
a
little
bit
about
the
revenue
How
much
is
it
making
Pull
up
your
Stripe
dashboard
to
show
the
audience
that
this
thing
is
legit
So
this
is
what
we
do
through
Stripe
We're
still
growing
and
reinvesting
like
back
into
the
business
It's
been
pretty
steady
Like
I
feel
like
from
August
last
year
597
000
and
then
August
now
63
000
Australian
It's
been
a
wild
ride
What
I
love
about
Tom's
story
is
how
simple
his
product
is
He
noticed
a
tiny
problem
and
built
a
really
simple
solution
that
solved
it
He
is
proof
once
again
that
you
do
not
need
a
complex
or
even
an
original
idea
in
order
order
to
be
successful
You
just
need
to
spot
a
real
problem
and
solve
it
And
that's
exactly
why
we
worked
with
the
team
at
HubSpot
to
pull
together
a
free
database
of
over
90
business
ideas
worth
solving
Every
idea
is
backed
by
real
data
things
like
revenue
and
cost
to
start
Plus
it
has
a
full
case
study
attached
to
it
on
how
they
built
and
grew
the
business
If
you're
looking
for
your
next
idea
or
looking
for
a
problem
to
solve
head
to
the
link
in
the
description
and
grab
this
database
100
for
free
All
right
let's
get
back
to
the
episode
Cool
Tom
Thanks
for
sharing
all
that
Just
tell
us
a
little
bit
about
what
you
were
doing
before
you
built
this
50
000
per
month
widget
Well
I
left
school
early
So
freshman
year
for
the
Americans
watching
That
probably
taught
me
the
biggest
lessons
ever
Like
I
got
my
first
job
and
it
was
like
4
an
hour
And
my
brain
just
couldn't
comprehend
how
I
was
making
4
an
hour
but
all
these
people
around
me
were
kind
of
making
way
more
money
So
I
started
to
obsess
about
like
business
and
what
are
different
business
models
So
I
kind
of
just
kept
obsessing
over
like
software
as
a
business
model
and
just
seeing
like
you
can
still
be
making
money
while
you're
sleeping
even
though
you've
already
done
the
work
Once
you
kind
of
realize
the
direction
you
want
to
go
in
and
then
you
just
won't
stop
iterating
and
trying
stuff
until
you
kind
of
find
something
that
clicks
So
how
does
that
lead
to
this
particular
idea
this
widget
that
you
built
I
think
realizing
that
this
was
a
problem
I
kind
of
obsessed
over
where
I
was
like
why
is
it
so
difficult
to
inquire
with
certain
types
of
businesses
Yet
they
seem
to
make
like
heaps
of
money
and
just
thinking
surely
there's
a
better
way
they
could
do
this
Leading
to
the
fact
that
it
was
like
I
didn't
have
any
coding
experience
I'd
never
kind
of
designed
anything
myself
but
I
knew
what
it
would
take
to
kind
of
put
the
team
together
to
get
these
things
And
seeing
that
anything
I'd
previously
done
had
some
success
I
was
like
well
why
couldn't
we
do
this
Like
why
not
me
if
we
started
and
just
give
it
a
go
Yeah
you
don't
have
technical
background
So
how
did
you
build
this
What
was
sort
of
the
timeline
Like
how
long
did
it
take
you
from
idea
to
a
working
project
that
is
now
you
know
scale
to
you
know
over
50
000
US
per
month
February
last
year
I
had
a
friend
that
was
a
developer
and
he
helped
like
create
like
the
MVP
basically
to
see
that
it
could
be
done
What
we're
kind
of
talking
about
like
embedding
it
naturally
into
a
client's
website
Once
we
kind
of
saw
the
layout
begin
to
come
to
life
I
kind
of
went
all
into
that
stage
So
I
hired
like
a
lead
designer
that
could
actually
make
them
look
better
I
hired
like
a
head
developer
that
could
actually
build
out
the
backend
And
then
we
hired
like
a
front
end
developer
Yet
we
had
zero
revenue
So
on
paper
terrible
idea
Don't
recommend
it
at
all
But
with
that
gave
us
the
confidence
to
sell
into
these
bigger
companies
that
we
kind
of
needed
to
get
on
board
to
pay
us
to
kind
of
make
it
possible
Yeah
for
sure
You
didn't
have
any
customers
You
didn't
have
any
revenue
but
you
were
able
to
hire
all
these
people
How
did
you
like
afford
that
I
did
run
a
marketing
agency
for
10
years
which
still
had
like
70
plus
clients
paying
like
website
hosting
So
I
used
my
like
very
precious
income
that
I
did
have
to
live
to
basically
fund
the
start
and
try
and
transition
out
of
the
agency
into
this
full
time
So
I
was
very
very
fortunate
that
the
past
business
was
still
like
actively
running
without
a
whole
lot
of
like
attention
required
but
needed
that
income
to
kind
of
be
able
to
hire
staff
to
then
get
the
product
up
and
running
Awesome
Can
you
tell
us
a
little
bit
more
about
how
you
grew
this
business
from
zero
to
over
50
000
a
month
in
a
relatively
short
timeframe
like
a
year
year
and
a
half
So
tell
us
a
little
bit
about
that
growth
How'd
you
get
that
initial
traction
Door
to
door
sales
essentially
like
going
and
showing
people
our
product
Initially
we
showed
it
on
an
iPhone
and
they'd
go
oh
what
is
it
It's
like
an
app
I'm
like
no
it
goes
on
your
website
There
was
a
lot
of
confusion
about
what
the
product
actually
was
Then
we
switched
to
iPads
One
of
our
early
staff
was
like
why
don't
we
just
show
it
on
like
an
iPad
so
they
can
understand
that
it's
like
embedded
onto
a
website
I
can
see
it's
in
their
branding
So
we
switched
to
iPads
and
then
printed
like
brochures
explaining
what
the
product
was
And
that
quickly
kind
of
got
us
really
early
traction
where
it's
like
when
you
show
someone
the
problem
they
have
and
you
can
explain
it
quite
clearly
like
you
can't
get
sales
outside
of
hours
This
fixes
that
They're
very
open
to
trying
something
new
that
they're
being
shown
in
person
with
a
real
person
which
has
then
led
to
us
being
able
to
get
bigger
clients
because
they
go
I've
seen
you
guys
everywhere
A
lot
of
people
must
trust
you
But
we
didn't
have
any
connections
to
get
into
those
bigger
clients
We
didn't
do
the
hard
work
of
getting
the
smaller
ones
first
That's
awesome
Just
tell
me
a
little
bit
how
you
landed
on
kind
of
working
or
building
an
app
or
building
this
widget
for
this
particular
type
of
customer
So
we
definitely
fell
into
it
Like
when
we
first
went
door
knocking
we
didn't
skip
a
business
So
we'd
even
go
into
like
music
studios
electrician
repair
shops
like
anything
that
was
open
we
would
walk
in
and
basically
just
try
and
show
them
our
product
What
we
found
from
like
taking
action
and
doing
that
was
the
trade
started
to
respond
to
us
better
and
better
And
it
kind
of
revealed
itself
that
they're
no
bullshit
kind
of
people
They're
very
direct
in
their
feedback
They
don't
like
giving
money
away
if
something
doesn't
pay
for
itself
And
that's
kind
of
exactly
what
we
needed
We
wanted
really
tangible
results
So
we
weren't
just
building
something
that
was
kind
of
based
on
hype
temporarily
We
wanted
to
build
like
long
term
clients
So
trades
kind
of
found
us
We
went
looking
but
they
kind
of
kept
being
interested
or
kept
showing
kind
of
interest
in
the
product
And
we
kind
of
adapted
it
to
suit
their
needs
as
their
kind
of
business
type
You
know
for
someone
watching
who's
maybe
getting
some
inspiration
and
say
oh
maybe
I'll
go
door
to
door
find
people
in
my
local
area
What
would
be
kind
of
your
advice
or
playbook
for
them
Definitely
starting
It
is
incredibly
intimidating
You're
about
to
show
them
something
you
put
like
your
love
and
effort
into
And
then
they're
either
going
to
like
it
or
they're
going
to
just
rip
it
to
shreds
But
if
you
really
do
love
your
product
that's
the
feedback
you're
actually
looking
for
So
maybe
it
doesn't
end
up
being
a
product
for
trades
and
they'll
tell
you
why
directly
to
your
face
But
sometimes
we've
even
had
certain
types
of
businesses
refer
us
to
the
right
business
being
like
oh
this
has
no
use
to
me
whatsoever
However
you
should
speak
to
my
friend
because
this
would
work
so
well
for
his
business
Yeah
cool
Let's
switch
gears
and
go
to
the
tech
sec
What's
the
tools
or
tech
sec
that
you
used
to
build
this
business
or
that
you
used
to
still
run
your
business
on
a
regular
basis
So
AWS
is
150
which
I
absolutely
love
because
that's
like
the
essential
biggest
part
of
our
business
is
the
hosting
Slack
120
Google
Workspaces
130
Vapi
at
500
So
we
do
use
a
lot
of
like
AI
voice
credits
And
then
Twilio
being
4000
which
is
a
huge
part
of
our
SMS
costs
which
is
another
part
of
our
product
Lusher
to
find
like
very
specific
leads
And
then
of
course
Claude
Everyone's
using
Claude
We're
no
different
We
need
it
to
survive
at
this
point
Cool
So
we've
been
talking
about
this
widget
you
know
used
for
these
trades
and
you've
told
us
a
little
bit
about
the
story
Now
I
want
to
see
it
Can
you
just
give
us
a
little
quick
demo
of
how
this
widget
works
For
sure
So
this
is
one
of
our
clients
First
thing
they
get
is
a
book
online
button
with
Google
So
it's
actually
partnership
with
Google
directly
They
click
on
that
They
come
through
to
the
client's
branded
form
where
they
can
kind
of
tap
through
the
product
If
customers
exit
out
of
it
they're
actually
sent
back
to
the
customer's
website
where
we
also
have
embedded
the
product
directly
on
the
website
as
well
So
that
way
clients
can
kind
of
contact
them
through
Google
or
they
can
contact
them
directly
through
the
website
leading
it
all
to
one
place
Essentially
I
love
that
The
final
question
that
we
ask
all
founders
to
come
onto
the
channel
is
if
you
were
standing
on
your
shoulders
you
know
a
year
ago
five
years
ago
or
for
somebody
watching
who
is
just
getting
started
in
their
business
journey
what
advice
would
you
give
to
yourself
or
give
to
them
Definitely
to
sell
before
you
build
I
know
it's
said
so
many
times
but
customers
don't
care
how
much
went
into
something
Sometimes
it's
really
sad
If
you
can
get
someone
to
commit
before
building
a
product
you've
probably
found
something
worth
pursuing
So
someone
you
tell
them
about
what
the
problem
you
fix
is
and
they
go
great
How
much
is
it
You
tell
them
the
price
and
they
get
to
the
point
where
they're
actually
willing
to
hand
that
cash
over
Then
you
definitely
could
be
onto
a
really
good
idea
That's
great
advice
Tom
thanks
for
coming
on
the
channel
So
fun
to
have
you
on
and
congratulations
Thank
you
Appreciate
it
All
right
right
I
just
wrapped
up
with
Tom
That
was
a
really
fun
interview
I
loved
learning
about
the
widget
that
he
built
and
kind
of
how
simple
the
business
is
I
have
like
two
takeaways
The
first
one
which
really
stood
out
to
me
was
the
like
door
to
door
sales
piece
that
he
talked
about
So
many
of
the
founders
that
we
bring
on
the
channel
and
I
think
I
mentioned
this
in
the
interview
interview
though
I
don't
know
if
it
stayed
in
there
So
many
of
the
founders
that
we
bring
onto
the
channel
are
using
you
know
TikTok
UGC
programs
building
in
public
posting
on
Twitter
to
get
their
first
customers
Obviously
all
that
works
as
you've
seen
from
our
interviews
interviews
But
there's
something
I
think
especially
in
a
world
that's
moving
so
online
I'm
sure
a
lot
of
his
customers
really
respected
him
for
coming
in
knocking
on
their
door
and
asking
for
kind
of
the
sale
or
the
service
And
not
that
I'm
necessarily
going
to
go
do
that
But
it
just
it's
a
little
bit
compelling
to
think
about
all
the
people
in
this
area
that
I
live
in
probably
in
the
area
that
you
live
in
who
are
not
familiar
with
AI
who
aren't
using
cloud
or
codecs
every
single
day
but
you've
built
a
solution
There
might
be
100
customers
in
your
back
door
who
need
this
service
or
need
something
built
for
them
You
know
you're
never
going
to
find
them
unless
you
go
kind
of
walk
down
the
street
and
do
it
So
that
was
I
think
a
really
really
good
piece
of
advice
And
my
second
takeaway
is
the
widget
aspect
is
so
simple
A
button
that
helps
one
business
you
know
earn
more
from
their
clients
That's
something
you've
probably
seen
100
times
and
you've
probably
used
yourself
He
was
able
to
do
it
for
mechanics
and
electricians
I'm
sure
there's
a
bunch
of
other
niches
out
there
that
could
use
a
product
like
this
And
so
my
takeaway
is
like
even
though
it's
something
I've
seen
done
100
times
it's
proof
that
you
don't
need
like
an
original
idea
to
go
do
it
My
last
takeaway
is
that
he
solved
a
really
big
problem
for
these
businesses
that
now
use
his
widget
to
help
complete
their
transactions
And
I
think
that's
probably
the
real
secret
sauce
of
this
whole
thing
is
that
he
solved
the
real
problem
Which
reminds
me
in
the
link
below
we
have
our
database
to
90
business
ideas
that
are
solving
solving
real
problems
right
now
all
backed
by
data
that
you
can
download
100
for
free
All
right
Thanks
for
watching
I
hope
you
enjoyed
this
episode
We
will
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
Get Access To All Startup Data Right Now (it's free)
Join our free newsletter to get unlimited access to all startup data. We just need your email:
S
Starter Story
Want to discover ideas that
actually
make money?
Get our 5-minute email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
It's free and read by 200,000+ founders
or
HubSpot uses your information to contact you about our products and services, and you agree to share it with Starter Story for similar purposes. Unsubscribe from either at any time. For more, see our
Privacy Policy.
Have an account? Login by entering your email or continuing with Google.
Please sign in.
Create A Password
Check your email for a link to sign in
Check your email
We've sent you an email with a link to sign in. Click the link in the email to access your account.
If there's a Starter Story account associated with that email you'll get an email with a link to automatically log in. The link will expire in 24 hours.
Your existing password still works, should you want to log in with it later.
S
Starter Story
Find the business ideas that
actually
make money.
Search 3,032+ real, revenue-generating projects — the tools they built on, how they grew, and the full breakdown behind each one.
S
Starter Story
starterstory.com/data
Live
| Idea | Revenue |
|---|---|
| $100K/mo | |
| $20K/mo | |
| $40K/mo | |
| $20K/mo |
S
Starter Story
Build a business that changes your life, in less than 5 weeks.
Discover a proven system to find, validate, and build your $1M business idea—alongside a community that won't let you fail.
Our next sprint starts soon...
S
tarter Story
Build
With AI, you can build
anything
Come up with an idea, build it, and ship an app that gets users and payments—in just a few days.
Join thousands of builders who are turning their ideas into real products.