Download the Bootstrapped Report: https://www.joinstation.co/bootstrapped
Silkscreen Marketing: https://silkscreenmarketing.com
Full Deep Dive: https://www.joinstation.co/blog/silkscreenmarketing
Photo Credit: https://www.hollandsentinel.com/story/news/2011/12/25/mygreatlakeonline-allows-fans-to-show/45298490007/

When I started my entrepreneurial journey, Kylen Blom was one of the founders I immediately looked up to. He had legendary stories like sleeping in boats to sell his t-shirts, and he was already running his business full-time right after college while I was just getting started.

That felt like the dream.

Today, Kylen is a good friend and someone I still admire. He's the founder of Silkscreen Marketing, an art-focused production studio in Holland, MI. He's built an incredible studio that takes swag items that usually come out generic and boring and makes them genuinely creative and memorable.

In this deep dive, we'll explore how a college pitch competition led to sleeping in boats around the Great Lakes, how a small local team competes with giant competitors, and how Kylen and his team think about growth in a different way than most.

Download the free Bootstrapped Report: https://www.joinstation.co/bootstrapped
Read the full deep dive: www.joinstation.co/blog/brandibernoskie
Learn more about Brandi: https://brandibernoskie.com

Brandi Bernoskie didn’t set out to build a million-dollar business. In 2011, she was writing content for NASA and running a small blog on the side, mostly for herself.

As she taught herself to code websites and friends started asking for help, a small side project grew into something more.

A couple of key mindset shifts turned that side hustle into what is now a $1M website agency, Alchemy & Aim.

In this deep dive, we’ll explore the mindset shifts Brandi made to go from side hustler to $1 million business owner, how her focus on service helped her stand out, and why her approach directly challenges one of the other founders I’ve featured here on The Quarter.

And after studying dozens of bootstrapped businesses in The Bootstrapped Report, Brandi’s story stands out as one of the clearest examples of how to grow a healthy, sustainable company.

Download the Bootstrapped Report: https://www.joinstation.co/bootstrapped
Plausible Analytics: https://plausible.io
Plausible's Live Public Stats: https://plausible.io/plausible.io
Full Deep Dive: www.joinstation.co/blog/plausible

In 2018, when Uku Täht was asked to set up Google Analytics for his company, he asked a key question: "Can we just use something other than Google Analytics?"

At the time, the answer was no. But fast forward to today, and there's a good chance you might use a company called Plausible Analytics, which now makes over $1 million in annual revenue by being everything Google Analytics isn't.

Plausible is simple to use, doesn't track individual users, and isn't free…

You might think charging for something Google gives away for "free" is business suicide, especially for a bootstrapped two-person team. But Plausible's story shows that sometimes being the paid underdog with a clear "we're not Google" positioning is exactly what people want.

Now, how Plausible has grown this has been a little unique compared to the dozens of bootstrapped companies I’ve studied in The Bootstrapped Report because it’s maybe the most straight forward growth strategy I’ve seen.

With online privacy being a key concern for many right now, let's dive into how Plausible Analytics has bootstrapped their way to over $1 million in annual revenue by being the privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics.

Download the Bootstrapped Report: https://www.joinstation.co/bootstrapped
Check out Sam's book: https://www.samvanderwielen.com/book/
Try Kit for free: https://partners.kit.com/matthewgira (this link is an affiliate link, so I do get some credit/rewards if you sign up to Kit!)
The full deep dive: www.joinstation.co/blog/samvanderwielen

Sometimes the thing people want from you isn't what you're trying to sell.

That's exactly what happened to Sam Vander Wielen. After spending 4 years as a corporate lawyer, she decided to become a health coach in 2016. But when she showed up at a creator conference called "The Good Fest" to find clients for her health coaching business, something unexpected happened.

A lot of people wanted to meet with Sam, so much so that there was a line to meet her, but it wasn’t about her health coaching business. They wanted to meet her to talk about how to protect their online business legally.

Mind you - Sam barely had an audience at the time. She had around 600 Instagram followers and that was it.

Fast forward to today, and she's built a business that has made over $8 million in the last 8 years with the same core products she started with.

Download the Bootstrapped Report: https://www.joinstation.co/bootstrapped
Full deep dive: https://www.joinstation.co/blog/elenasonorange
Elena's on Orange: https://www.elenasonorange.com
Elena's on Orange Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elenasonorange/
Blank Mason Deep Dive: https://www.joinstation.co/blog/blankmason

What happens when a Head of Data Science from Airbnb opens an ice cream shop? You get a store with 1,000 potential customers before making a single scoop, flavors tested through Instagram with 10,000 views per post, and a neighborhood hub that became the go-to spot for a 9,000 person community.

Elena Grewal opened Elena's on Orange in November 2022, bringing her data scientist mindset to the world of ice cream. Within just seven months, this small neighborhood shop hit $250,000 in annual revenue – all because Elena understood exactly which metrics actually matter.

Download the Bootstrapped Report: https://www.joinstation.co/bootstrapped

Duett: https://duett.co
Happy Subscribers Podcast: https://duett.co/blog/new-podcast-welcome-to-happy-subscribers/

If I told you someone could create a $12,000 proposal in 8 minutes and get it signed that same day, would you believe me?

That's exactly what Allea Grummert, founder of Duett, does regularly as part of her email marketing and copywriting agency for bloggers.

But having the ability to close five-figure deals this quickly didn't happen overnight.

It took a $5,000 investment in an incubator program, creating one perfect productized service, and valuing long-term relationships over short-term gains.

Download the Bootstrapped Report: https://www.joinstation.co/bootstrapped
Full deep dive: https://www.joinstation.co/blog/geniuslink
Geniuslink: https://geniuslink.com

Sometimes the best businesses start with solving your own problem. For Jesse Lakes, that problem was losing affiliate commissions from international traffic to his niche extreme sports soundtrack website.

That single frustration eventually turned into Geniuslink, a company that has survived four "revenue-cut-in-half-overnight" catastrophes and still emerged as the leading smart link platform for creators.

I sat down with Jesse and Shannon, two of Geniuslink's co-founders, to hear the full story of how they bootstrapped this business from the ground up and grew it to over $250k in annual revenue.

Download the Bootstrapped Report: https://www.joinstation.co/bootstrapped
Learn more about franchising Blank Mason here: https://blankmasonfranchise.com/
Blank Mason store: https://www.blankmason.com
Full Blank Mason Deep Dive: www.joinstation.co/blog/blankmason

These days, to run a business that provides experiences, you have to make it Instagram-worthy - something people want to share.

For Sara Jennetten and Blank Mason, they didn't just make candle making a great experience, they built a business that was Instagram-worthy from Day One.

Here's the catch though: Blank Mason only has 4,500 Instagram followers and 400 on TikTok. So how are they driving business from these platforms? Well, let's dive into Sara's story and how she bootstrapped Blank Mason to over $250,000 in annual revenue in just 6 months.