Works 1 Day a Week, Earns $11K/Month

Angus ChengFounder of Bank Statement Converter $11,000 monthly recurring revenue
Published September 25, 2023 by Fardeen KhanReviewed and edited by Niall Doherty

Check out Bank Statement Converter, which allows you to…

Easily convert PDF bank statements from 100s of banks world wide into clean Excel (XLS) format.

According to live Stripe data, that project is earning $11,000 in monthly recurring revenue

Founder Angus Cheng lives in Hong Kong and shared his story in a recent interview…

I had just quit my job [and I] was looking for something to build. A friend of mine wanted to work with me on something so we were both on the lookout for ideas.

One day I wanted to analyze my spending so I logged onto my online banking account in search [of] a CSV feed. They didn’t have one, all they could give me were PDF bank statements.

I downloaded all the statements, then wrote some code to extract the data I wanted. It was incredibly fiddly. I thought it would take about an hour, but I think I spent 10 hours on the script.

He adds…

I thought “If I have this problem, maybe someone else does”.

So I pitched my friend the idea “Let’s make a web app that extracts transaction data from PDFs”. He was keen. I went over to his place two or three times and we hacked out an MVP and got it into production.

To get their first users, Angus tried Google Search Ads, spending about $1000 per month. 

But the return was poor: $200 revenue for $858 in ad spend. His partner soon dropped out, saying he found the project to be “a bit too boring”

Angus persisted and eventually switched to a subscription model priced at $20 per quarter. He also improved the PDF processing. 

Revenue jumped to $740 from just 20 users that month

Around that time, Angus came across this article which convinced him to try content marketing. 

He started writing blog posts, got lucky with one hitting the front page of Hacker News – see all his HN submissions here – and began ranking better on Google

Angus writes…

At this point I learn that content marketing is a much more effective marketing strategy than paying for clicks. Good content can bring in traffic for years, whereas once you stop paying for ads, they stop bringing in traffic.

More simply, I wasn’t able to make money while running ads. It was clear to me the strategy had to stop.

Today Bank Statement Converter makes money from monthly and yearly subscription plans ranging from $5 to $20 per month. 

Revenue has steadily grown to $11,000 MRR while costs are only around $1000 per month

Angus also notes…

At the moment I dedicate one day a week to the business.

On that day he responds to user messages and fixes any issues reported.

Such a simple, low-maintenance product earning him 6 figures a year… gotta love it

Angus’ advice for anyone starting out…

Get your product live immediately. Talk to your users. Keep the product simple.

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