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Interactive Excel practice in a browser-based spreadsheet simulator, sold as a subscription after a few free lessons.
about 2,500 active paying subscribers · around 50,000 visitors in the past four weeks
Jake kept a 1,500–2,000-word landing page that "should" have been short, because it converted search visitors; a plain HTML/JS site now does $30K–$35K a month.
Fewer bars = easier, cheaper, or faster for an AI-assisted solo builder. Editorial judgments based on the case details.
Jake built Excel Exercises as a side project while working full-time and attending graduate school. The site teaches Excel functions and keyboard shortcuts through interactive exercises and spreadsheet-like simulations instead of video lessons. The founder says it currently earns $30,000 to $35,000 per month; the last four weeks showed a little over $30,000 in revenue, about 50,000 visitors, and roughly 2,500 active paying subscribers. He started it after finding corporate Excel training videos dull and hard to retain, then connected the idea to Duolingo's short lesson format. After a first $50 payment arrived unexpectedly, more sales followed. Jake quit his job two years ago and said revenue grew about fivefold after going full-time. Organic search drove early growth, while paid ads and university or corporate deals later contributed. The business runs with a low software bill and largely automated subscriptions.
For Excel Exercises, the earliest customers came from people already searching for practical Excel help. Jake says he posted on Reddit a couple of times, but the real early growth came from SEO.
The quick-reference card — acquisition channels, replication playbook, and risk map — is members-only.
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Two production-grade prompts per idea — a full build spec and an SEO growth plan — plus 10 tailored build specs a week. Members only.
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Data credibility: Jake, the founder, states $30K–$35K per month, a little over $30,000 in the past four weeks, about 50,000 visitors and about 2,500 active paying subscribers in a podcast interview. No dashboard is shown; figures are self-reported and unaudited.
The first dollar arrived as a $50 payment while the site was still rough and Jake had not promoted it. He describes waking up to the payment notification and initially thinking it was a mistake.
Excel Exercises began to compound when search traffic connected practical questions to hands-on practice. Function-focused articles brought learners with specific intent, while the long landing page explained the broader product and converted some of that audience.
A long stretch of slow progress is common for an educational site because search visibility builds gradually and learners may not trust an unfamiliar teaching format. Excel Exercises had a particularly low-pressure beginning: Jake worked on it nights and weekends and kept the early version online while improving it.
The rest of this breakdown — 9 more sections — is in the Unicorn Club, with every section of all 1,372 ideas: first customers, first dollar, the flywheel, and the silent stretch.
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