How a Musician–Turned–Marketer Scaled Fomo to $100K MRR

Origins of Fomo

At 16, Ryan Kulp wasn’t thinking about startups or software. He was touring in a screamo band, not applying to college. At 18, he left home without telling anyone and started bouncing between couches. Eventually he enrolled in school, pulled a 4.3 GPA, and still kept chasing music in Atlanta. He wrote a book, launched it on Kickstarter, and it bombed. That failure nudged him toward tech, and by 2013, he landed a marketing job at ShuttleCloud, a Techstars startup. He jumped from one early-stage company to another, YC-backed Keychain Logistics, his own agency Sprinkle Labs, then GrowthX, a VC firm in San Francisco where his job was growth marketing for portfolio companies.

Acquiring Notify and Rebranding

While working at GrowthX, Ryan came across Notify, a basic Shopify plugin that displayed customer actions like recent purchases. The founder wasn’t looking for investment; he wanted out. Ryan told his friend Justin Mares in passing, and Justin replied, “We should buy it.” That was that. They structured the deal with seller-side financing. No banks. No VCs. Just a simple setup: pay monthly from the app’s revenue. If they missed two payments, the original owner could take the business back, no questions. That clause, oddly, made the seller more comfortable. Ryan and Justin secured 100% ownership from day one and handled all the risk from there. A few thousand bucks out of pocket, plus a Chase credit card they maxed out for the rebuild.

They rebuilt everything - new UI, new code, new name. “Fomo” was catchier. Cleaner. And when Ryan first saw the widget live on a site, he had a strong gut reaction: “What is that? I need to know.” That was his entire thesis. If it grabbed him, it would grab other marketers too. He didn’t run any complex model to calculate CAC vs LTV. He just had conviction and a working product.

From Side Project to Full Focus

Ryan kept his day job in venture for a while. Nights and weekends were for Fomo. The early growth came from e-commerce founders on Shopify who were trying anything that might move the needle. Then came requests: ClickFunnels, Mindbody, BigCommerce. They built integrations for all of them. Local dentists started using Fomo. So did gyms. Digital course creators. By now, the product wasn’t just a widget, it was a flexible notification engine that plugged into nearly any stack. They launched an ad network, gave users credits to try it, and added rollover billing just like Google Ads. It started looking like a real company. Not massive, but stable, and growing in chunks.

Scaling and Cost Discipline

Fomo eventually hit $150K MRR. But costs ballooned. At one point, they spent $135K a month: salaries, contractors, and a team yacht trip across the Adriatic. Yeah, a yacht. They raced in the Barcolana 50 and stopped through Croatia, Slovenia, Italy. Fun? Sure. Smart? Maybe not. Ryan pulled things back. Headcount was trimmed from 12 to 5 full-time and 3 part-time. Some of the original $4/month customers never upgraded, so the real revenue per customer was low. They launched new pricing: 25+ plans, ranging from $19 to $2,000 a month, based on site traffic and notification volume. Enterprise users started trickling in. Most didn’t need hand-holding. They wanted results. The product delivered.

By reframing Fomo as the default choice for social proof popups,“the Coke of notification bars” organic traffic and conversions improved. Shopify called it the #1 Black Friday app. And even with flat top-line growth, the business got healthier. Fewer people. Better margins. More control.

Selling for a Seven-Figure Exit

At some point, Ryan stepped back. He hired a CEO, moved to a ranch, and started thinking about land in Yellowstone. When offers came in, he wasn’t chasing multiples. He wanted the right vibe, someone who understood how SaaS actually runs. Relay Commerce acquired Fomo in a private deal. It was clean. No earnouts. Just a check. He didn’t disclose the final price, but given Fomo was doing nearly $100K/month in MRR, and they had the Fomo.com domain (which cost $105K on its own), it wasn’t a small number.

By the way, that domain used to belong to a foam insulation company. Ryan followed their site for months until a private equity firm acquired it and rebranded. That’s when he swooped in. Deal done through friends, cash via private debt. They paid off the $105K in less than a year. No angel round. No drama. Just patience and a willingness to get it done.

Next Chapters: Fork Equity, Courses, and Hardware

After the sale, Ryan co-foundedFork Equitywith his wife. They’ve since acquired 15+ small SaaS and info product businesses, all cashflow positive. No institutional LPs. Just a private BCC list of high-net-worth friends who co-invest occasionally. One of their biggest wins? A no-code course on micro acquisitions, now generating $78K/month. No support. No bugs. Just Stripe and a dashboard. The entire thing runs itself.

He also builtTRMNL, a minimalist e-ink productivity device for task management. Over 1,800 units sold in months. And when they want to unplug, they head toHacker House, a remote retreat cabin for founders. Somewhere quiet to think, write, and plan the next thing. Ryan still writes code. He’s still online. But now it’s on his terms, no investor decks, no board meetings, no growth theatre.