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Christopher Gjelten on Bootstrapping a Tool for 590+ Gaming Communities

Jakob here 🖐

In my newsletter Fake Mayo I share weekly stories (interviews) of how founders got their first customers.

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Christopher Gjelten is a 23-year-old software engineer based in Oslo, Norway, and the founder of Fivemanage - a SaaS platform for managing and monitoring gaming servers.

His journey began in high school, building websites through his own sole proprietorship. After stints at a marketing agency, Komplett (Scandinavia’s largest electronics e-commerce company), and Wilhelmsen Shipping Service, Christopher set out to build his first startup.

Fivemanage launched in July 2023, initially serving the FiveM modding community for Grand Theft Auto V. By solving a growing pain - the lack of stable media storage - it quickly gained traction. The platform now handles over 50 million uploaded files and serves 2 petabytes of data monthly, with around 590 paying customers and 10,000 monthly visits.

Entirely bootstrapped and built with support from two contractors, Fivemanage has grown organically, relying heavily on word of mouth within niche game modding communities. Christopher has since expanded support to games like Roblox and is working to scale beyond his core user base. With distinct products for media storage and logging, he’s now aiming to make Fivemanage a staple tool for game communities and developers alike.

Read the full story
https://www.fakemayo.com/p/how-christopher-built-a-solid-gaming-saas-business


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on June 12, 2025
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