Bannerbear
$1M ARR (September 2025), bootstrapped, small remote team
British-Singaporean indie hacker, ex-Aviva. Quit corporate in 2018; documented every step from $0 to $1M ARR publicly.
Jon quit Aviva ($20K/month Singapore role) in July 2018. After 7 failed products in his '12 startups in 12 months' challenge, he launched Previewmojo — an OG image generator that hit #2 on Product Hunt but barely made money. In January 2020 he rebranded it as Bannerbear and pivoted to a REST API.
The Receipt
“On its face this seems handy... But the pricing, for the above, seems insane: $99/mo for the standard plan”
“Bannerbear got to $1 million ARR on Rails 6 and jQuery. You don't need to be on the cutting edge of tech all the time.”
— @yongfookThe Journey
Growth trajectory — click a dot to jump
- Jul 2018
other Jon quits Aviva Singapore corporate role ($20K/month). Starts '12 startups in 12 months' challenge.
- Nov 2019
launch Previewmojo launches — OG image generator. #2 Product of the Day on Product Hunt. ~$400 MRR peak. Fails commercially.
- Jan 2020
pivot Pivot and rebrand: Previewmojo → Bannerbear. Single-product focus. Launched January 15, 2020 on Product Hunt.
- Apr 2020
milestone $500 MRR. Featured on openstartuplist.com as an open startup case study.
- Apr 2020
launch Bannerbear Zapier Integration launches on Product Hunt — #3 Product of the Day, 459 upvotes. Opens no-code segment.
- Mar 2020
What they said
“Bannerbear is actually an example that even if you have an audience, and yongfook has been at this indiemaker space for ages, it is still tough to break $1kMRR.”
What happened
REST API and template editor launched — the decisive technical expansion beyond OG images to any-image-any-purpose.
March 2020
Criticism → Reality - Nov 2020
other Adopts 50/50 coding/marketing weekly sprint discipline. Also repositions around 'automate' and 'scale' marketing jobs-to-be-done.
- Jan 2021
press HN thread on $10K MRR post: 654 points, 110+ comments. Critics call pricing 'insane.' Jon answers each one directly.
- Jan 2021
What they said
“On its face this seems handy... But the pricing, for the above, seems insane: $99/mo for the standard plan”
What happened
$10,455 MRR — ~2,000% growth year-over-year. Publishes 'My 2 Year Journey to $10K MRR' post.
January 2021
Criticism → Reality - May 2021
press Featured on Indie Hackers podcast (ep. 208). ~$19K MRR at recording. Jon has 60K Twitter followers from build-in-public posts.
- Jun 2022
milestone $40,000/month MRR (~$480K ARR). Product now has a small remote team.
- Jul 2023
milestone $50,000/month MRR (~$600K ARR). Publishes '7 Lessons Growing a Bootstrapped SaaS to $50K MRR' post.
- Sep 2025
What they said
“Existing solutions (Bannerbear, Placid) charge $49-149/mo which felt crazy for indie projects making $0.”
What happened
$1,000,000 ARR announced by Jon on X. 'Bannerbear got to $1M ARR on Rails 6 and jQuery.'
September 2025
Criticism → Reality
Outcomes & Insights
Latest outcome
September 2025
ARR
$1,000,000 ARR
Build-in-public + open metrics: documented every MRR milestone at bannerbear.com/open/ — built community trust, 60K Twitter followers, and a self-reinforcing acquisition channel
50/50 coding/marketing discipline: rigid weekly alternation — one week coding, one week writing tutorials, blog posts, and community content — preventing the founder trap of only building
API-first pivot: switching from a template SaaS to a REST API expanded the addressable market to every developer needing dynamic images; Zapier integration then opened no-code buyers without added code complexity
Pricing courage: abandoned $9/month tier (would have required 5,000+ customers to hit $50K MRR) in favor of $49–$399/month tiers requiring only ~500 customers
Bannerbear got to $1 million ARR on Rails 6 and jQuery. You don't need to be on the cutting edge of tech all the time.
💡 What you can learn
- Bannerbear's pivot from Previewmojo is the actual product.
- The OG-image tool was a commercial failure that identified the real market: developers who need to generate images programmatically.
- Yongfook listened to a critic.
When they pushed back
When a founder told him OG images weren't a 'hair on fire problem,' Yongfook agreed and pivoted Previewmojo into Bannerbear — a general-purpose image API rebuilt around REST and templates.
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