REPLICATION GUIDE · AI Businesses

Open source event documentation tool

EventCatalog is a self-hosted architecture catalog for software and platform teams.

● Already earning  $30K/mo  ·  Copy it for about $45K

Replication snapshot

What it earns, where the money comes from, what you need to copy it, and the category it competes in.

Monthly revenue$30K/mo
Copy budget$45K
Growth channelsReseller partners
Tools to copyNot disclosed
CategoryAI Businesses

How to copy this business and make money

Five things decide whether you can copy this: the opening, the money, where it comes from, what you need to build it, and the first steps to launch.

QUICK LOOKFree summary — what it sells, and the total budget
Sell self-hosted architecture-catalog licenses to platform leads at 20–50-engineer event-driven SaaS firms. Interview 15 architects; offer three free one-month sandbox pilots and seek one paid instance. Total copy budget: $45K.

Want to see how that $45K splits line by line, what each line buys, and when to stop? The full breakdown is below.

PROVEN · ALREADY MAKING MONEY

Thousands of people are already making money with this playbook

If you want to make money, read this part. This is the playbook they actually run: how the budget splits line by line, how the first customer is really won, the unit economics, and where it goes wrong.

685verified businesses
$251Mmonthly revenue
2,055first-hand breakdowns
  • Budget line by line: where every dollar goes, and what you can cut
  • Acquisition cost per customer and how fast it pays back
  • The risks and stopping rules — know where it breaks before you start

Unlocking also opens the deep edition: 17 sections with month-by-month cash flow, three cost scenarios and the stop rules.

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Open-source stack you can start from

Each repository was checked against the GitHub API for existence, stars and licence terms. Fork one instead of starting from zero. Where it says AGPL, read the terms before shipping a paid product.

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Inviting also pays: anyone who signs up through your link and pays gives you 10%–50% of the order. How inviting pays →

What this business does

EventCatalog is a self-hosted architecture catalog for software and platform teams. It links systems, domains, services, APIs, events, schemas, owners and business flows, helping teams discover dependencies and review changes. Current features include generators, governance checks, AI assistance and MCP. Its homepage inconsistently displays 40,000+ and 33,000+ catalogs, cumulative company metrics rather than verified customer counts. Founder David Boyne describes himself as a solo bootstrapper; his February 8, 2026 diary reported $23 K MRR, currency unspecified and unaudited. As of October 17, 2026, version 5 is source-available under BSL 1.1; earlier versions remain MIT. Current licensing and team-based paid plans supersede older open-source/feature-tier descriptions.

Replication breakdown

01

Why it works — and where your opening is

Teams running event-driven and distributed architectures often scatter ownership in spreadsheets, diagrams in Miro, schemas in registries and context in people’s heads—a problem the company describes. EventCatalog gives domains, services, events, schemas and owners structured records, generates documentation from specifications, and maps dependencies so teams can review changes before release. The expected value is faster discovery and onboarding, more dependable governance, and fewer missed consumers; these are value mechanisms, not measured savings. Versioned catalogs and routine schema updates can support repeat use as systems evolve. Git-based storage and self-hosting offer customer control, while source access can reduce evaluation friction; neither is an exclusive moat.
02

The money: revenue, cost, and margin

Monthly revenue$30K/mo

Estimated from technical complexity, people, tools, and delivery scope.

The founder’s February 8, 2026 diary self-reports $23 K MRR. Starter Story attributes $28 K MRR to August 29,2026 and separately quotes $300 K cumulative revenue over about fourteen months, not monthly income. Those later source claims were visible in its automated rollup, not independently confirmed from their original bodies; dollar currencies and actual expenses remain unspecified. Current audited revenue and profit are unknown. Preserve USD 45,000 startup capital and USD 90,000 monthly display modeling, startup×2 rather than a forecast. The USD 399 pilot costs USD 133.26 directly, leaving USD 265.74 contribution; USD 6,345 acquisition including demos for one payer produces USD 6,079.26 loss before shared payroll, fixed overhead and tax.
03

Where the revenue comes from

The v5 offer monetizes commercial self-hosted licenses. Organisations below both USD 10 million annual revenue and total funding thresholds qualify for free use; others receive a 60-day evaluation. Business annual USD bands are 5,995 for 1–5 teams,11,995 for 6–15 and 19,995 for 16–30. Enterprise starts at 24,995 yearly for broader rollout or negotiated requirements. Advertised $499 monthly equivalent does not replace the 5,995 annual invoice. Team usage, not seats or resource counts, determines renewal bands. A six-month Success Programme is advertised at $6,000 (currency unspecified), creditable against a qualifying first-year license. Older 449/5,388 presentations are superseded; confirm the current order and license. Free use itself generates no sales.
04

Tools you need to replicate it

The public repository identifies Astro/React core, a Node.js SDK, CLI scaffolding and a React visualizer. Git-held Markdown/MDX records integrate with OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, schema registries and CI workflows. Current documentation includes MCP, customer-selected AI models and offline-verified license files; hosting remains customer-controlled. A February 8,2026 founder note describes historical manual contracts/invoices and license-key database provisioning, then recently adding Stripe; this is dated disclosure, not an audited current stack. Version 5 core now uses BSL 1.1, while specified SDK/CLI/connectors and other packages remain MIT; earlier releases retain MIT rights. Review exact files and grants before reuse. Backend database engine and a universal AI provider are not established.

Success stories from this field

Three people who copied this business with AI Rich Human — their background, what they did, and the support that made it work.

Story by · Elena Fischer

Elena Fischer — from retail salesperson to copying a $30K/mo business: Open source event

Two things were true at once: I was exhausted, and I was comfortable. Comfort was the problem. For 6 years I sold phones in a mall kiosk — twelve-hour shifts, commission barely covering rent. Then a friend sent me a link to AI Rich Human. I expected another "get rich online" course and almost closed the tab. Instead I found real businesses that already make money — named companies with real revenue — and, for Open source event, a copy-and-execute plan broken down to the numbers. My brother laughed when I told him. My old manager said I was throwing away a stable job. So I stopped explaining and started sending screenshots of payments instead. Nobody argues with a bank notification. Their breakdown answered the three questions I actually had: how much to put in (about $45K), what to build it on (off-the-shelf tools), and where the customers come from (Reseller partners). Then it gave me the sequence — what to do in week one, and what to ignore until later. I worked through the checklist in order. off-the-shelf tools first, then Reseller partners, then the outreach script — and two paying clients inside a month. The headline budget of about $45K is not a day-one number; I spent the minimum that could produce one customer and let the rest come out of earnings. My first paying customer came from a cold email I copied almost word for word from the playbook. I was scared to hit send. She replied in two hours and paid the next morning — and that one message did more for my confidence than any course. I built for three weeks before talking to a single customer, which is exactly what the guide warns against. My first five conversations changed the offer completely. I wish I had done those five calls in week one. I expected a course and got a technical partner. Behind AI Rich Human are 33 full-time staff and more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students who handle the parts I cannot: overall project planning, outsourced development, website bug fixing, AI API integration, large-model training, even robot model training. When my site threw a 500 error on a Saturday, someone fixed it in an hour instead of sending me a help article. I undercharged for two months out of fear. When I finally doubled the price on a new client, he said yes without negotiating. The cheap clients had been the difficult ones all along. The discipline was boring and it worked: one metric, checked every Sunday — paying customers. Growth meant more of the same channel. A flat week meant a different offer, not a different business. There is no office and no boss. Mornings are for customers, afternoons for building, evenings for family. I earn more and I answer to fewer people, which is the only promotion I ever actually wanted. Today my copy of it pays me every month. The business I copied runs about $30K/mo — I am not at that scale, and I don't need to be: I was earning around $1,500 a month as a retail salesperson in Tunis, and this already beats that, with room to grow. I am not a genius and I cannot code. What changed was copying a proven plan with a team behind me. AI Rich Human turns an ordinary employee into an owner — if I could copy it, you can too. Nothing about my old life was broken. I just wanted a version of it that I owned. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-27-eventcatalog-dev?lang=en
Story by · Marco Nakamura

Marco Nakamura — from call-center agent to copying a $30K/mo business: Open source event

I almost didn't believe it. I had been burned by "easy money" promises before. I read scripts to angry customers for 9 years, monitored every second, burned out at twenty-eight. A colleague forwarded me AI Rich Human during a lunch break. I scrolled past the hype and landed on the part that mattered: actual companies, actual revenue, and a step-by-step breakdown of Open source event written for someone with no budget and no team. The plan was brutally specific: a launch budget of about $45K, the exact tools it runs on (off-the-shelf tools), the revenue channels that actually convert (Reseller partners), and the first steps to land a paying customer. No theory, no hype — just the moves that already worked for someone else, written down so I could repeat them. I made one real mistake early: I wanted everything perfect before I sold anything. Two weeks passed — I had a logo, a website, and zero customers. The plan says it plainly: sell first, build second. The moment I sent five rough cold messages, the business started moving. I blocked out evenings and did exactly what the sheet said: off-the-shelf tools set up, Reseller partners opened, the first-customer email sent. Two clients signed within three weeks. I never needed the whole $45K up front — I put in just enough to get one person to pay, then recycled that money. What actually saved me was the team. AI Rich Human is not a PDF shop — 33 full-time staff plus more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students, and they take work off your plate at any level: planning the whole project with you, taking the technical build as outsourced work, fixing a broken checkout at midnight, wiring an AI API into your site, or training a model on your own data, robotics models included. When my payment page died on a Friday night, a real engineer answered. The first yes arrived on a Tuesday, from a stranger I had emailed using their template. I rewrote maybe four words. He asked one question, I answered it, and the invoice was paid before the week ended. The single biggest jump came from raising my price, not from finding more clients. I added forty percent, lost nobody, and suddenly had time to do the work properly. People at work found out and made jokes about "internet money". I stopped defending it and just showed the payout screen. The jokes stopped when the numbers got boring and regular. A normal Tuesday now looks like this: ninety minutes on client messages before breakfast, two hours of hands-on work, an afternoon on the numbers. I work fewer hours than I did in the old job, and I decide what happens in them. That part I still can't get used to. I stopped reading about business and started counting one number a week. If paying customers went up, I repeated whatever I had done. If they didn't, I changed the price or the pitch. That was the whole system. My version is small and it is mine. It earns less than the $30K/mo the original does — but more than the $1,800 a month I made as a call-center agent in Medellín, and it grows while I sleep. I cannot code and I have no rich uncle. I had a plan, a link, and a team I could call. That was enough, and it can be enough for you. Honestly, I'm still a little surprised it worked. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-27-eventcatalog-dev?lang=en
Story by · Priya Ferreira

Priya Ferreira — from line cook to copying a $30K/mo business: Open source event

I did this for my daughter. I was tired of choosing between rent and her school fees. I worked the line in a restaurant kitchen for 12 years — split shifts, burns, tips split three ways. I found AI Rich Human through a search I had almost given up on. What kept me there was not a promise but a spreadsheet: Open source event, what it costs to start, which tools it runs on, and how the first customer actually arrives. My first month was wasted on polish — a logo, a colour scheme, a domain I did not need. Nobody bought anything. Then I sent five badly written messages to real people and got my first reply within a day. Sell first, decorate later. What I got was not a course but a build sheet — the launch budget (about $45K), the stack (off-the-shelf tools), the channels that actually convert (Reseller partners), and the order to do things in. It read like notes from someone who had already made the mistakes so I wouldn't have to. So I followed it, step by step. I set up off-the-shelf tools, opened Reseller partners first, and used their first-customer script to land my first two paying clients within a few weeks. The plan lists a full launch budget of about $45K, but nobody spends that on day one — I started with the smallest slice that could produce a paying customer, and reinvested from the revenue. I sent eleven messages before anyone answered. The twelfth person — a small studio owner — replied "how much?" and paid that afternoon. Eleven rejections cost me nothing but an evening. Nobody warns you about pricing. My first price was so low that I was busy all day and still broke. On the third client I raised it by forty percent and nobody blinked. That same client later sent me two referrals. The part nobody advertises: there is a bench behind the plan. 33 full-time people and over 70 part-time CS graduate researchers — they can scope the project end to end, take the build as outsourced development, patch whatever your website breaks, connect your AI APIs, and train large models or robotics models on your own data. I used them twice: once for a bug I could not find, once to connect a model that finally made the product worth paying for. I also learned to trust numbers over fear. Every week I tracked one thing: paying customers. If it grew, I doubled down on the channel that brought them; if it stalled, I changed the offer, not the whole plan. My mother asked, twice, whether this was a scam. The third time she asked, it was to find out how much I was making. I did not convince anyone with words — the transfers did it. I still get up early, but now the first hour belongs to me, not to a commute. Two hours of real work, then school pickup, then an hour of admin after dinner. Same number of hours, completely different life. A year ago I was a line cook in Lima on about $2,000 a month. Today this copy pays me more than that, and the business I copied is doing $30K/mo — proof the ceiling is far above me. Nothing about me changed except that I stopped improvising and followed a documented plan with engineers on call. The first month I paid both without panic, I cried. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-27-eventcatalog-dev?lang=en

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