From ten years of failed products to $10k/mo and five acquisitions
Joshua Tiernan failed for ten years, then sold a business. Then, he sold five more.
Most recently, No Code Founders and Tiny Empires were bringing in roughly $10k/mo before getting acquired.
Here's Joshua on how he does it. 👇
A serial failed founder
I'm a serial failed founder. I had ten years of making $0 online before getting my first break when I discovered Bubble.
My first Bubble app was a remote job board that specialized in showing you jobs that were hiring in your own timezone. It got acquired by We Work Remotely a few months later. Since then, I've sold five other no-code businesses. It seems my business model is building and selling micro-businesses.
For the past 6 years, I've been running nocodefounders.com and, more recently, the Tiny Empires Substack. These were both recently acquired too, but I've stayed on to continue running the community and content.
Before I sold them, they were averaging around $10k/mo, but it varied month to month — anywhere from $0 to $25k. We've got about 34,000 members.
The evolution of a no-code product
I initially started the No Code Founders as a free Slack group back in 2019, when the no-code movement started to take off.
As a non-coder, I had been fumbling my way around building products. But discovering Bubble allowed me to become a serious founder for the first time ever. I realized there were many other people in similar situations, and I set up the Slack group as a way to connect with them. It took a few months to reach the first 100 members, and it took a full year before I turned it into a business.
As the Slack group grew, I started a newsletter to share updates on what was being posted in the Slack. Each week, I would curate these and send them out so that everyone would jump back into conversations.
These natural conversations brought a lot of attention from the no-code tools themselves. So, I created some sample sponsorship packages and sent them to the platforms' CEOs to see if they were interested... and they were!
I launched a sponsorship program, then a paid membership once I had built up enough value for members.
A simple stack
The stack was initially just Slack. Then, I built a landing page on Carrd. That graduated into a simple blog site built on Webflow. And then, finally, it became the current site — a directory/marketplace built on Bubble.
So, these days, my stack is:
Bubble
Stripe
Beehiiv
If I had to start over, I would focus more heavily on community and less on tech. There are a lot of off-the-shelf solutions for running community businesses now. Using something like Circle would have allowed me to spend more time delivering value by engaging with members and creating initiatives.
Community challenges
The challenge with a community business is that the desires of the community change at each stage of growth.
What a community of 100 members wants is very different from what a community of 10,000 members wants. For me, that meant the business model moved around a bit more than I expected. I've had to change strategies every few months.
Overall, though, sponsorships have historically accounted for the bulk of the revenue. We also offer a lifetime membership, which is a one-off fee. The things that change most are what's included in the sponsorships and memberships.
Growth via content and SEO
Initially, I grew by publishing interviews with other founders. I would look for interesting stories on Twitter, as it was called at the time, and invite them to a written interview. I would then share these on social media and via the newsletter, and they would attract a few more users. I did this repeatedly until the Bubble site was built.
The Bubble site allowed users to submit their own content, including details about their startups and what tools they used to build them. Again, I shared the best content via the newsletter, and this created a flywheel of more content being added.
Over time, I learned more about SEO and built the site in a way that would optimize each new piece of user-generated content that was added. This led to most of the sign-ups coming through Google.
Fast-forward to today, where the LLMs now recommend us as a founder community based on the search engine results.
Five pieces of advice
Here's my advice:
Take startup best practices seriously, rather than being overly optimistic.
Read startup books and start building simultaneously.
Use existing business models, don't invent your own.
Target businesses rather than consumers.
Price higher than you think.
What's next?
From here, my goal is to build online products that give people more time to spend offline.
You can follow along on X and LinkedIn. And you can join both nocodefounders.com and tinyempires.substack.com for free.
Leave a Comment
Great story, this story is exactly the reminder I needed right now. 10 years of things not working out → finally cracking it with community with simple tools. Super motivating for a solo founder like me who’s just starting the journey. Thank you for the transparency
Love this story James. Ten years of nothing working encourages many of us. Your post is a good reminder that you don’t need a huge launch just a clear niche and steady value. Thanks, your information gives me important insight! :)
Turning ten years of failed products into a business earning $10k per month and achieving five acquisitions is a powerful example of persistence and smart learning. Each failure can reveal what customers truly want, helping refine ideas and strategies. Success often comes from improving execution, understanding the market, and staying consistent. When founders keep iterating, validating, and adjusting, even long periods of setbacks can eventually lead to strong, profitable outcomes.
That's really inspiring! Shows the power in simply not giving up
Reminds me that persistence and small cycles beat having "the one idea." Congrats on the outcome!
Really inspiring to read how your journey evolved from years of failure to finally finding momentum through no-code tools. The part that stood out most is how community played a bigger role than the tech itself. It’s a great reminder that growth often comes from consistent engagement, storytelling, and understanding what people need at each stage. Your transparency about shifting business models and learning SEO along the way is genuinely motivating for anyone building in the no-code space.
amazing work
Joshua’s journey is such a solid reminder that persistence pays off — ten years of “failure” before a breakthrough is inspiring. Love how he leveraged community first, letting value and connections drive growth instead of overcomplicating tech. The emphasis on content and SEO as a growth engine, combined with a simple, no-code stack, shows you don’t need complexity to succeed. His advice on using existing business models, targeting businesses, and pricing confidently is gold for any aspiring founder. Excited to see what he builds next, especially tools that give people more time offline — exactly the kind of thoughtful impact we need.
you have defined the perseverance which is the key factor in any area of life. Kudos to you!!
thank you so much for sharing
I appreciate the honesty in this post. It's not often we hear about the decade - long struggles before success. It makes the achievements even more impressive.
Thank you so much for sharing
love how your story shows that it’s not one big idea but small, consistent systems that win community, simple tools, and content that compounds. most people chase scale too early. you proved that depth > speed.
Your story is a reminder that persistence plus community focus beats everything. Really motivating read
'My business model is building and selling micro-businesses.'
This is a massive mindset shift. Instead of trying to build one massive unicorn for a decade, you cracked the code on building repeatable, sellable assets.
I also love your admission about the stack: 'If I had to start over, I would focus more heavily on community and less on tech.'
We often over-engineer the MVP. Seeing you start with just Slack and evolve into a Bubble/Stripe/Beehiiv stack is the perfect validation for keeping it lean. Inspiring breakdown, Joshua.
Thanks for your support Hafizur
This is incredibly inspiring to read, thank you so much for sharing. As a solo dev currently in the trenches with my own project, it's stories like yours that provide the fuel to keep pushing through the tough days.
Thanks! I'm glad it was helpful
Love this story, thanks for sharing Joshua!
I never started a community, but when I was building my Zendesk consulting business, I found the most success by helping users of an existing community.
What's better than hearing directly form your target market?
if you need an help I could get a free AEO audit for you on loom
Thanks for the offer. Sounds interesting
yeah this was great, i like it
Wow, multiple years with 0$, but then finally made it, so proud when i hear these kinda stories
yeah this was a great for me
Excellent post, I've heard a lot recently about pricing higher than what you think, but with so much competition out there, pricing higher than the successful businesses, who can price low, is a struggle in itself. Community sounds like the right approach to take. Definitely going to follow on X and LinkedIn
yeaah excellent
Great post! I always enjoy trying new free games and Rope Hero Mod APK is definitely one of the best — packed with action, missions, and an open-world experience that keeps you hooked.
Really appreciate you sharing this! Curious — what was the hardest part of building it？
Great read. Joshua’s persistence and focus on simple community-driven execution is a solid reminder that consistency beats everything. The way he turned years of trial into a repeatable system is motivating. Thanks for sharing this breakdown
but what is bubble?
I can only think of the Golang CLI framework but I doubt that should be it
thanks for your sharing you story mate
looking forward to reading more of these
Bubble is a no-code platform. bubble.io
“Really enjoyed this one. Joshua’s journey shows how long ‘overnight success’ actually takes. The way he kept iterating—community → newsletter → sponsorships → SEO flywheel—is a masterclass in keeping things simple and leaning on momentum. Big respect for turning years of failure into a repeatable system.”
Crazy inspiring, fam. The resilience here hits different. Most folks tap out after a couple misses, but you kept iterating until the market had no choice but to pay attention. Love the mix of storytelling, product scars, and practical game. Definitely taking notes on how you leaned into content, SEO, and community. Appreciate you sharing the blueprint.
Congrats James, those story should be an inspiration for people in the same situation as you 10 years ago.
Incredible journey! Ten years of failures transformed into $10k/month and five successful acquisitions.
Ten years of failure leading to $10k/month success.
Awesome view. As a founder struggling to get things going and generate revenue, it is awesome to see people succeed. Best of luck to you!
“Inspiring journey! Turning ten years of failed products into $10k/month and five acquisitions shows remarkable persistence.”
"Building and selling micro-businesses" as a business model is something I hadn't considered before. Most people talk about building to scale forever, but there's something appealing about the exit-focused approach from day one.
“Inspiring journey! Turning ten years of failed products into $10k/month and five acquisitions shows remarkable persistence.”
Really inspiring story. It’s cool how consistent effort, even after years of “failing,” eventually turned into multiple exits. The part about community-driven growth stood out the most for me.
“Inspiring journey! Turning ten years of failed products into $10k/month and five acquisitions shows remarkable persistence.”
Thanks for the feature James 🙏