Ghost - $7.7M ARR - Simple Blogging Tool

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Ghost is simple blogging platform doing $7.7M ARR!

• Simple blogging platform

• Started with a Kickstarter campaign

• Open source 🤯

This is their revenue chart -

Why Ghost works?

Spiky Point of View

👆 That’s a line from Ghost’s founder - John O’Nolan’s intro video for its Kickstarter campaign from back in 2013.

Not a platform that does everything in an average manner. Instead a platform that does 1 thing very well.

That’s how Ghost was started.

Before we move on, quick word from Hubspot -

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John had been designing and building sites on WordPress since 2005.

WordPress had started as a simple blogging platform for anyone to publish content. But within a few years it turned into a full-blown CMS platform.

By 2011-12 it was getting used more for marketing sites and brochures.

WP was no more focused on straightforward content publishing. (Its founder famously called WP the operating system of the web)

That frustrated John!

So on November 5th, 2012, John made a few mockups and published a blog post titled - WordPress is so much more than just a blogging platform.

Continue reading the full deep dive about Ghost -

• Launch with a Kickstarter campaign

• Fighting with VC funded competition

• Growth strategies that worked

• And more…

Read the full story 👇

💡 SEO Validated Idea of the Week

Keyword - “Brandverity alternative”

Insight: Brandverity is a tool to monitor your brand name on PPC Google ads. Competitors or Affiliates can misuse a business’ brand name on Google ads. So businesses use Brandverity to monitor search results every day, generate reports and also take down those ads.

Its a pure B2B enterprise SaaS, there is no pricing available on the website, so it must be high ticket. Clearly problem aware customers are searching for an alternative on Google. Huge potential to build a cheaper and smaller version of Brandverity.

Request:

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From the Vault -

3 random post from the Superframeworks archives -

• The REAL opportunity in NoCode

• Building a business is more like Sculpting than Pottery

• 27 Best Micro SaaS Ideas to Build Right Now in 2025 (With REAL Examples)

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Whenever you’re ready, consider joining the Indie Masterminds community. The goal of this newsletter is to inspire you, but the goal of the community is to help you take action and go to the next level in your journey.

So if you’re at that stage where you don’t need more inspiration, but you do need to take the right action, then come join us!

We’re here to help 🫂

PS: Crossed $500 MRR 🤩