The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Strategic decision · 2013–2025
ImprovMX: a $5K email-forwarding side project grew to 200K users and a profitable exit
Two SaaS founders bought an unmonetized email-forwarding tool for $5,000, rebuilt it freemium, bootstrapped it to $350K+ ARR and 200,000+ users, then sold it.
ImprovMX
What the business is
ImprovMX forwards email from custom domains (multiple domains, catch-all aliases, SMTP) to personal inboxes; free for up to five domains and aliases, with a $9/month premium tier.
Starting capital：Bought the existing unmonetized service for $5,000 in 2017; no outside funding after that.
How it started
Alexander Tereshkin built ImprovMX as an indie side project; by 2017 it had a few thousand users and organic traffic but made no money. Antoine Minoux and Cyril Nicodeme, both users of the service, made an offer and bought it for $5,000.
What happened
They rebuilt it from the ground up and launched a freemium model — five domains and aliases free, $9/month premium — and subscriptions started rolling in within hours. Growth stayed organic: the free tier became the acquisition channel, and the service grew to 200,000+ users forwarding 30M+ emails monthly, with $350K+ ARR and 3,000+ paying customers.
How it ended up
Announced in January 2025 that ImprovMX had been acquired by Matthew Tse, after a December due-diligence process; the founders moved on to their next bootstrapped product, Fernand.
Background
ImprovMX started as an unmonetized side project: a simple landing page where developers could set MX records and forward email from custom domains. By 2017 it had a few thousand users and organic traffic, but it made no money and had no management portal — once configured, nothing could be changed.
Antoine Minoux and Cyril Nicodeme were users who saw the potential. They bought the service from Alexander Tereshkin for $5,000 and rebuilt it from the ground up: a management dashboard, multi-domain support, custom aliases, and SMTP sending. Their freemium launch — five domains and aliases free, $9/month premium — brought subscriptions within hours of going live.
The business stayed bootstrapped and grew organically on the free tier. By the time it was sold, ImprovMX served 200,000+ users, forwarded 30M+ emails monthly, and generated $350K+ ARR from 3,000+ paying customers. The acquisition, announced in January 2025, handed the service to Matthew Tse while the founders turned to their next bootstrapped product, Fernand.
What has to be true
- Buying an existing tool with real usage for $5,000 was cheaper and faster than building from zero — the demand was already proven.
- The freemium tier (five free domains and aliases) was the entire growth engine; it spread the product through developers' own networks.
- No venture funding meant the founders only had to make the product pay for itself, so pricing and features stayed aligned with users, not investors.
- A boring, reliable utility kept churn low and made the business valuable to a hands-on acquirer looking for steady cash flow.
What can be applied
An unglamorous utility with real demand can be bought cheap and grown profitably: freemium does the marketing, and staying bootstrapped keeps the exit in the founders' control.
Aftermath
ImprovMX continues operating under new owner Matthew Tse as of September 2026 with the same freemium model and email-forwarding focus. Founders Antoine Minoux and Cyril Nicodeme moved on to Fernand, their bootstrapped customer-support product for SaaS founders, using the lessons and capital from the ImprovMX sale.
Sources
- ImprovMX has been acquired!
- Bought This Side Project For $5K, Grew it to $350K/Year
- ImprovMX — BoringCashCow profile
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