Building Atlist: A Six-Year Retrospective

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Today marks six years since Steve and I set out to build a tool out of sheer frustration and a shared belief: that creating beautiful, functional maps shouldn’t require a degree in cartography or hours wrestling with the Google Maps API.

Steve and I had been orbiting the world of maps on the web for a while. Before starting Atlist, I worked on a few startups that relied heavily on mapping. One was a coffee shop coworking locator that used geolocation and real-time messaging to help caffeine fueled professionals connect while working from cafés. Another app for health professionals to share healthy alternatives and where to shop locally. I also built a small app to help bicycle couriers plan optimal delivery routes. Around the same time, Steve was creating and sharing an annual map of farm shares in Toronto. I remember us venting to each other about how frustrating it was to work with the Google Maps JavaScript API.

We both believed that making a map should be simple, and we had a hunch others felt the same.

The Beginning

On May 27, 2019, we set out to make creating maps easy. We wanted to build a simple tool, yet genuinely useful. A tool that would take the headache out of map-making. Three months later, we launched the first version of Atlist. It was minimal, but it let people create stylized maps with custom pins and a list of locations that could be embedded directly on their websites.

A couple of months passed. We had a handful of signups and a few dozen maps created, but still no paying customers. We kept refining the tool, adding features, and holding on to hope. Generating $0 for any length of time is scary, so when I woke up on my 29th birthday to a Stripe notification that Atlist had made its first sale, best birthday ever.

From idea to first customer, it took six months. Thank you, Jack.

But behind that small win was a constant, nagging question: What if Atlist doesn’t take off? There were stretches during that first year, actually the first two years, when that doubt echoed louder than any support ticket or new sign-up. Sometimes, weeks would go by without a single new customer. We questioned everything. We questioned our product, our vision, even ourselves. It was a quiet kind of uncertainty, the kind that creeps in when progress feels invisible. But we kept going. Even through it all, I don't believe Steve or I ever wanted to quit.

The Turning Point

Almost exactly two years after starting Atlist, lightning struck. It was equal parts thrilling and terrifying. I was doing my usual daily check of the platform's logs and vitals when I noticed something alarming: hundreds of thousands of map loads, racking up tens of thousands of dollars in usage costs overnight.

After some frantic digging, I traced it to a single account with a map that had gone viral. It turned out to be from the team managing Bon Jovi’s American tour. They had embedded an Atlist map on their website, showcasing all the tour dates that year with links to purchase tickets.

At the time, we didn’t have the concept of metered usage. This one map had the potential to wipe out more than all the revenue we had generated over the past two years.

We reached out to their team, sweating the entire time. After a quick phone call, and a not-so-reassuring verbal IOU, we agreed to continue hosting the map and send them an invoice after their marketing campaign was completed. Honestly, I didn’t expect them to actually pay for it. But they did.

We added metered usage to all subscriptions the following week.

Seeing our tool used for something so high-profile was surreal. But more importantly, it showed us what Atlist could become. That experience opened up a whole new way for Atlist to grow.

The Long Game

There is no overnight success. It took four years before Atlist became profitable. In an age of hyper growth startups and multi-million dollar seed rounds, our journey looked more like a slow hike than a rocket launch. But that hike taught us patience, grit, and the value of building something sustainable.

In 2024, we brought on two incredible new team members who share our passion and belief in what we’re building. Expanding the team beyond Steve and I was its own kind of milestone. A reminder that Atlist isn’t just surviving anymore. It’s growing.

What We’ve Learned

If you’re on a similar path of bootstrapping something you believe in, here’s what I want to share with you:

  • Frustration is fuel. If something bugs you enough to build a better way, trust that instinct.

  • Slow is okay. In fact, slow can be better. It forces you to listen, iterate, and build with intention.

  • Your first users matter more than your first thousand. That Bon Jovi campaign wasn’t just a big moment, it gave us direction.

  • Profitability is underrated. It gives you control. Freedom to say no, freedom to build for users instead of investors.

  • You don’t need everything figured out. We didn’t. We still don’t. Six years in, and you still can't change your Atlist username or duplicate a map.

Onward

Maps created with Atlist are viewed by millions of people every month, in every continent and country in the world. Every map someone builds with Atlist is a small testament that tools should empower, not overwhelm.

If you're building something and you're in the messy middle: keep going. Paul Graham called it “the wiggles” and we were in it for years. Keep at it, the promised land eventually comes, with time and grit.