Pivoting a too-technical product into a $50k/mo business

Alex Florescu built something clever, but useless — it was too technical for real users. Then, he looked at the market and pivoted to what customers needed. Now, ShortPixel is making $50k/mo.

Here's Alex on how he did it. 👇

Building a useless experiment

ShortPixel started 11 years ago — not as a grand vision, but as an experiment.

At the time, I was running a profitable website screenshot business. It paid the bills, left me with spare time, and came with underutilized servers. Opportunity was sitting there, waiting.

So, I built an image optimization API in a couple of weeks. Fast, efficient… and largely useless.

Why? Because the people who needed it most — our potential customers — had no way of accessing it. It was too technical, too complicated for a regular user. We weren’t solving their problems; we were just building something clever.

WordPress was already the dominant CMS, and the image optimization space was wide open. No great plugins. No real competition. So we did the obvious thing: We built one. Simple, effective, and powered by our API.

At first, it was free. Then, on April 1, 2014, we flipped the switch and started charging.

Within months, we knew we were onto something. It wasn’t just profitable — it was worth doubling down on. We moved from repurposed servers to infrastructure built specifically for the job. And just like that, ShortPixel wasn’t a side project anymore. It was the future.

Today, ShortPixel.com generates $50k/mo. And our side project, FastPixel.io, is bringing in $5k/mo.

Going all in

The moment ShortPixel became even slightly profitable, we made the call: all in. No side projects, no distractions. Just focus.

At that point, revenue covered our costs, with a small profit — enough to keep going indefinitely. As two technical cofounders, we had everything we needed: the backend, the plugin, the infrastructure. No waiting on outside help, no bottlenecks. Just build, ship, improve.

It took six months to reach that decision. Six months to realize this wasn’t just another project — it was the project. From day one, we committed to two things: Outstanding customer support and building the best image optimization solution possible.

Listening became our superpower. Almost every major feature we’ve added over the years? A direct response to what customers actually needed; not what we assumed they wanted.

At first, it was just the two of us. But as the business grew, so did the team — slowly, deliberately. Today, we’re a team of ten.

A promise of uptime

We built ShortPixel on the shoulders of giants — open-source tools like Linux, PHP, and MySQL. But what makes it ours? The proprietary compression algorithms, the optimizations, the countless refinements that turn raw technology into something extraordinary.

The core stack hasn’t changed radically. But it has evolved. Scaling from a handful of users to processing 20 million images a day forces you to rethink everything — architecture, efficiency, resilience.

Early on, we hit a wall. A sudden flood of customers pushed our system to the edge. More servers weren’t enough. We had to go deeper — optimizing every bottleneck, building in redundancy, eliminating single points of failure.

Growth isn’t just about getting bigger; it’s about getting better.

Today, we run on 40+ servers, each tuned for performance, scalability, and fault tolerance. Hardware fails. Networks go down. It doesn’t matter. The system keeps running. 99.9% uptime isn’t just a metric — it’s a promise. And that promise is why people trust us.

Holding steady

We optimize and compress images, making websites faster. While anyone can use our services via APIs and web tools, the majority of our users are WordPress site owners and agencies.

We run on a freemium model — offering both subscription plans and one-time purchases. The goal? Deliver a valuable service that scales.

We initially overcomplicated our pricing, trying to tailor plans with different credit limits and price points. It took us longer than it should have to see the obvious: flat-fee, unlimited plans weren’t just easier — they were more profitable. For us, and for our customers. Complexity is a trap; simplicity scales.

Today, our revenue sits at around $50k per month. That number has stayed steady despite increasing competition and industry-wide price drops. Instead of chasing higher prices, we focused on expanding our user base. That strategy worked: Over a million people have tried our service and our optimization technology powers more than a million websites, either through our plugins or partnerships with others like FastPixel and Autoptimize.

Growth comes at a cost. We’re a team of ten, running a high-end cloud of 40+ servers. Image processing at scale is computationally expensive, and that infrastructure isn’t cheap. But scaling efficiently has been key to staying in the game.

Organic growth

Our approach to growth wasn’t conventional. We took inspiration from stories like Airbnb’s — where they did whatever it took, even if it wasn’t scalable, just to see what worked. We followed the same playbook. Experiment first, optimize later.

When we started charging for optimizations on April 1st, there was no grand launch, no flashy announcements. It just… grew. Organically.

Our first wave of users found us naturally through the WordPress.org listing of our plugin. We didn’t have to chase them. But keeping them? That was the real challenge. That’s where timing worked in our favor — something that, if I'm honest, was pure luck.

Here’s what we did to get traction early on:

1. We built partnerships. We reached out to plugin owners on WordPress.org who worked in related areas — images, SEO, caching. Many of those partnerships still exist today.

2. We tracked every mention of our competition. Tools like Talkwalker helped us monitor when competitors were mentioned on blogs. Whenever we spotted an opportunity, we reached out and invited people to try ShortPixel instead.

3. We listened. A tool like F5Bot (which wasn’t around a decade ago) now helps us track what people say about us and our competitors. It also gives us insights into real problems users face with image compression and site speed — so we can solve them.

4. We tested paid ads. We tried different advertising strategies, but the numbers never made sense. So we stopped. Simple.

5. We built an affiliate program. This turned out to be one of the most effective long-term growth strategies for us.

6. We leveraged deal sites. Running promotions on deal platforms, especially AppSumo, was a game-changer. It generated buzz and brought in over 10,000 customers. More customers, more feedback, more edge cases to refine the product. And many of those customers are still with us years later.

Growth isn’t about rushing. It’s about showing up, paying attention, and doing the work that matters.

Scaling beyond the early wins

At the beginning, every small win matters. But as we grew and picked the low-hanging fruit, we had to shift focus. Now, we double down on what truly sustains us: affiliates and continuous product improvement. That, and sending a few emails a year with meaningful updates — because staying connected with users is just as important as acquiring them.

Finding the right idea

If I were starting a new project today, I’d begin with one crucial step: understanding the market.

Not just skimming the surface, but really digging in — studying the competition, looking at how they operate, and figuring out if there’s room to do something better.

I’d ask myself the right questions: Do they offer free trials? Are they subscription-based? Is the market still fresh, or is it already overcrowded? The answers to these questions shape the strategy before a single line of code is written or a single prototype is built.

Next, I’d immerse myself in the space. I’d test existing products, sign up for newsletters, and read everything I can get my hands on. The goal isn’t just to stay informed — it’s to develop an instinct for what works and what doesn’t.

The best creators don’t just observe trends; they feel the pulse of the market and their niche.

But here’s the real key: The best products don’t start with a business plan. They start with a problem. Ideally, a problem you yourself have experienced. The most powerful ideas don’t come from a brainstorming session—they come from frustration. You build something not because it’s theoretically interesting, but because you need it. You’re scratching your own itch.

Too often, I see products built by technically skilled creators who love the process of building but never stop to ask: Does anyone actually need this? They chase what’s cool, not what’s useful. And without real demand, no amount of clever engineering will turn a project into a sustainable business.

The real test isn’t whether you can build it — it’s whether the market is waiting for it.

Parting advice

Here's my advice for anyone just starting out:

• Don’t be afraid of doing things that don’t scale. The early days are about momentum, not efficiency.

• Listen to your users and improve the product constantly. What worked yesterday won’t necessarily work tomorrow.

• Be consistent. Progress comes from showing up every day, even if it’s just an hour. A day of intense work followed by weeks of silence won’t get you anywhere.

• Don't focus on short-term revenue: If you’re offering a service that has mass appeal, prioritize growing the user base over maximizing short-term revenue. We made a bet years ago that the cost of running technology would decrease over time. That meant our best move wasn’t to raise prices, but to get more people using our service. As the user base grows, economies of scale kick in, and revenue follows naturally.

• Hire sooner: Hiring was one of our biggest missteps. We waited too long. We told ourselves we were being careful, but in reality, we were just moving slower than we needed to. More people, sooner, would have meant more momentum, more innovation, and fewer missed opportunities.

• Go all in: We eventually experimented with side projects — adjacent to our core business, but not essential. Smaller markets, fragmented focus, and ideas that didn’t benefit from long-term commitment. Every extra initiative came with hidden costs: More overhead, less clarity, and a drag on innovation where it mattered most.

• Not every customer is the right customer: It’s easy to chase every lead, to try and serve everyone. But the truth is, pricing isn’t just about revenue—it’s a filter. The right pricing attracts the right people. And the right people? They’re the ones who help you build something that lasts.

What's next?

The future isn’t just about keeping up — it’s about pushing forward. At ShortPixel, we’re committed to leading the way in image optimization. With SmartCompress, we believe we’ve already set a new standard, delivering the best balance of image quality and file size.

But innovation doesn’t stop there. We’re exploring AI integrations that will take image optimization to the next level, making it even smarter, more automated, and more effective. Our goal? To ensure that ShortPixel’s plugins are the only tools you need to make your website’s images as SEO-friendly and impactful as possible.

And we’re not stopping at images. The caching and WordPress speed optimization market is filled with two types of solutions: Those that are powerful but overly complex, and those that are simple but ineffective. With FastPixel, we’re changing that. Our vision is to create a world-class caching and acceleration plugin that delivers incredible speed improvements while remaining effortless to set up. No unnecessary complexity. No steep learning curve. Just results.

The feedback so far is excellent. But this is just the beginning. Our focus this year is to scale FastPixel and get it into the hands of as many website owners as possible. Because speed isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity. And we’re here to make it accessible to everyone.

You can follow along on our blog and X. And check out ShortPixel and FastPixel.