Can confirm — Chinese maps are insane.
I tried Baidu Maps when I was in China last November, and Google Maps and Apple Maps feel way behind in comparison.
People are surprised that iLovePDF is a million-dollar company and keep asking “how are they even making money?”
It actually makes perfect business sense.
They built something simple that millions of people need every single day; merge PDFs, split files, compress, convert Word to PDF, sign documents, etc. Just everyday problems solved fast.
Now imagine this:
If only 1 million people use the tool monthly and just 2–5% pay for premium at $5–$7/month…
That’s already hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in recurring revenue.
On top of that, they earn from ads, business subscriptions, desktop apps, and enterprise tools for teams.
This is the power of boring but useful products.