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A developer-focused scraping API scaled through technical content, self-serve adoption and enterprise contracts.
Fewer bars = easier, cheaper, or faster for an AI-assisted solo builder. Editorial judgments based on the case details.
ScrapingBee is a web-scraping API founded in 2019 by Kevin Sahin and Pierre, two French developers with prior experience solving scraping problems at other companies. After spending roughly nine or ten months on a pricing-bot product, they recognized that e-commerce was a difficult market for them to sell into. They shifted to a problem they knew well and a developer audience they knew how to reach. Before the API launched in July 2019, they published technical articles and distributed them through Hacker News, Reddit and newsletters. The blog had several thousand visitors before product launch; in the launch month they closed five or six customers, including one paying more than $1,000 per month. Sahin reports approximately $8K MRR in August 2020, $70K–$80K MRR a year later, and $5M ARR in December 2024. The company was acquired by Oxylabs for an eight-figure amount, according to the interview host; the exact terms are not disclosed in the discussion.
The quick-reference card — acquisition channels, replication playbook, and risk map — is members-only.
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Two production-grade prompts per idea — a full build spec and an SEO growth plan — plus 10 tailored build specs a week. Members only.
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Source links and the full captured transcripts — the raw material behind every number — are members-only.
Join the Unicorn Club — $5/moCancel anytime, in one clickData credibility: The $5M ARR milestone and founder recollections are reported in an interview by Kevin Sahin; the acquisition is described by the host as an eight-figure deal. The founder gives approximate historical MRR figures and says he does not recall exact values for some periods. No audited financials, public filing or buyer confirmation is cited in the transcript.
9 more sections — how the first customers came, how the first dollar landed, what turned the flywheel, and how they got through the silent stretch. Members read all of it.