Hitting a 7-figure ARR with a strategic partnership

Eugene Zolotarenko wanted to leave his 9-to-5, so he built tools in his free time. After a minor success during the AI rush, he found the problem he wanted to solve. But when he solved it, he launched to crickets — until a partnership opportunity presented itself.

Now, Outrank is bringing in a 7-figure ARR.

Here's Eugene on how he did it. 👇

Leaving the 9-to-5 salary behind

I’m a software engineer who dreamed of creating my own $10k MRR product. I worked a 9–to-5 as a front-end developer, but I didn't want to be limited to a 9-to-5 salary. And I wanted full control over my time. So, in parallel, I tried to build my own products.

A couple of years ago, I had my first small success: I reached $3k MRR with my Chat with PDF product, which I created during the first wave of the AI boom. While thinking about how to grow it, I dove deep into SEO and realized I needed to create content to become visible on the internet.

That’s how the idea for Outrank came up. I tried many options on the market, but none of them were business-oriented — they lacked context about my project. Now, I had a problem and an idea for how to solve it.

So, I built a v1 over a couple of months, launched it, and tried to promote it, but it was hard. I got stuck at $400 MRR. The product needed better implementation and stronger distribution.

Partnering up and hitting seven figures

Then, I DMed, my current cofounder, Tibo, on X. We chatted about the app, sharing ideas. And we decided to partner up.

We completely reshaped the product, rebuilt it, renamed it, and launched it again. That's how Outrank was born.

Now, customers stuck around, my cofounder’s marketing ideas were brilliant, we aggressively posted on X, and we quickly reached $10k MRR. That allowed me to quit my job and work on the product full time.

Leaving a stable, well-paying job was really hard, even though the product was already generating decent MRR. I was used to stability and a monthly paycheck, but I managed to shift my mindset and finally quit. This was my dream, after all.

Currently, we're at a 7-figure ARR.

Your biggest asset

It's hard to build a product that people actually want. Not the process of building itself, but making it a stick product.

But it's easier once you have users. At that point, we were able to listen to customers and improve the product based on their feedback.

If I could start over, I would build our v2 version from the beginning. It's a much more automated way of creating SEO content with smart keyword research. It had better onboarding too.

At the end of the day, the product that you try to sell is your most important asset.

Distribution is hard

Distribution was the biggest challenge I had along the way. It's hard to find customers at an early stage

Here's what we did to get traction:

• Wrote about the product on X and in newsletters

• Launched on all possible platforms — like ProductHunt

• Started an affiliate program

• Grew SEO — mainly dogfooding Outrank. Writing content and building backlinks via our backlink marketplace. Also free tools.

• Ran ads

Of course, having an audience that you can sell your products to is insanely powerful. This boosted Outrank's growth a lot.

A simple tech stack

Here's our tech stack:

• Next.js

• TypeScript

• postgresql

• Tailwind

You will find a way

My advice is to literally never give up. If you really want to build your software business, you'll find a way.

• Experiment with different ideas

• Try all possible marketing channels

• Partner with other builders

• Listen to your customers, chat with them. Become friends with them.

• Build a very good, sticky product based on your customers' feedback.

Open X, follow all big Indie Hacker accounts, and interact with them. Also, read all the stories on Indie Hackers.

When I tried to figure out how to build my product, I had my daily walks and listened to indiehackers.com podcasts. It helped a lot.

What's next?

I want to keep building Outrank, improve it, and grow it as much as possible.

You can follow along on X. And check out outrank.so!