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[00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:02.320] Welcome to Startups for the Rest of Us.
[00:00:02.320 --> 00:00:03.760] I'm your host, Rob Walling.
[00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:17.600] In this week's episode, I talk with Pierre DeWolf, the co-founder of Scraping Bee, about how they mostly bootstrapped to $5 million in ARR and an eight-figure all-cash exit.
[00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:19.360] It's an incredible story.
[00:00:19.360 --> 00:00:23.280] We talk about some of their early struggles growing.
[00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:35.200] What changed when they went from growing, I think, $7K of MRR in a year and then suddenly grew almost 2 million ARR over the next 15 months.
[00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:36.560] And something changed there.
[00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:38.960] We dig into that early in the episode.
[00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:46.000] We find out any trophies that Pierre bought with the proceeds from their exit.
[00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:56.400] We talk about their thought process for deciding when to sell, why to sell, as well as some of the inner workings of the exit and just how hard it can be to sell a company.
[00:00:56.400 --> 00:01:03.360] If you know Pierre from XTwitter, you've seen his very thoughtful tweets about bootstrapping and indie hacking.
[00:01:03.360 --> 00:01:11.200] And he has what I consider a pretty insightful thought process about what it takes to be successful in this game.
[00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:19.600] Before we dive into the conversation, I am doing a live QA on Thursday, July 17th.
[00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:24.240] You will only get access to that if you are a member of MicroConf Connect.
[00:01:24.240 --> 00:01:30.400] MicroConf Connect is our amazing online community for bootstrapped and mostly bootstrapped founders.
[00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:35.360] Inside Connect, we have founder-to-founder discussions about what's working today in SAS.
[00:01:35.360 --> 00:01:40.320] We have live workshops and AMAs, including the one with me on July 17th.
[00:01:40.320 --> 00:01:46.400] And we have access to our content vault with recordings from every previous MicroConf event.
[00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:51.600] MicroConf Connect is $50 a month, and we charge for it to keep the quality up.
[00:01:51.600 --> 00:02:03.800] It's a gate that keeps the quality of the founders Inside very high, and it allows us to afford to pay a moderator to keep the conversation going and to make sure it's super high signal to noise.
[00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:07.960] MicroConf Connect.com if you're interested in checking it out.
[00:02:07.960 --> 00:02:11.320] And with that, let's dive into my conversation with Pierre.
[00:02:18.040 --> 00:02:21.080] Pierre DeWolf, it's a pleasure to have you on the show.
[00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:22.520] Hello, Rob Whaling.
[00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:24.360] Thank you for having me.
[00:02:24.680 --> 00:02:26.360] Yeah, it's great to have you on, man.
[00:02:26.360 --> 00:02:32.280] I think a lot of folks who listen to this show will know you from ex-Twitter.
[00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:38.120] You've been in the indie hacker community pretty prominent for many years now.
[00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:47.880] And you and your co-founder, Kevin, started Scraping Bee, and you recently sold it for an eight-figure all-cash exit.
[00:02:47.880 --> 00:02:51.720] No stock option shenanigans, as you put in your tweet.
[00:02:51.720 --> 00:03:04.680] But you've even had, I mean, other folks, you know, I think it was a month or two ago, I went through one of your tweets that was something like, what was it, like 12 or 20 hot takes about indie hacking that you may not agree with or whatever.
[00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:07.240] And I was like, I think I agreed with almost all of them.
[00:03:07.240 --> 00:03:09.240] You know, we were in agreement.
[00:03:09.240 --> 00:03:12.440] And your wisdom, I think, has, you know, been helpful for a lot of folks.
[00:03:12.440 --> 00:03:19.560] Last time that you were public about Scraping Bee's revenue, and Scraping Bee was mostly bootstrapped, effectively bootstrapped.
[00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:21.320] The only money you took was from Tiny Seed.
[00:03:21.480 --> 00:03:24.600] Last time you were public about it, you were at 5 million ARR.
[00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:27.960] And that's with two co-founders and a very small team.
[00:03:27.960 --> 00:03:30.360] I don't know, a handful of folks you're working with.
[00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:31.320] Four, yeah.
[00:03:31.320 --> 00:03:31.800] Four.
[00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:34.920] So it's, I mean, highly profitable.
[00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:43.800] Before I get to how did it feel when the money hit your bank account, and I want to know, you know, what you bought, the crazy, the crazy trophies you bought, why sell it all?
[00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:45.760] Why not just run it forever?
[00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:48.720] Yeah, that's actually a good question.
[00:03:49.040 --> 00:03:52.400] Definitely something we talked a lot about with Kevin.
[00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:54.080] And I think there's two things.
[00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:57.840] First, what this phrase, I don't remember who said it.
[00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:09.280] I think it was Naval, but like, most startup doesn't die because of money or stuff, but most startup dies because founders are tired, you know?
[00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:15.600] We've been running Scraping B for five, six years and doing web scraping for 10, 12 years.
[00:04:15.600 --> 00:04:22.640] And we just, we were not to the point where we were sick of it, but we were getting tired of doing web scraping.
[00:04:22.640 --> 00:04:24.160] We wanted something new.
[00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:30.400] And then the second point is like, the only way to know the top is to reach the top, you know?
[00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:36.400] So Scraping B was in very good position to be sold in terms of revenue, growth, and all.
[00:04:36.400 --> 00:04:43.760] And we didn't want to wait for the growth to slow or to even decrease before selling it.
[00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:57.360] We also had, you know, you change between, I mean, you change during all your life, but between 25 and 32, 33, you change, your priority change, you start to settle, to build a family.
[00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:05.920] And so, yeah, all of this combined, we thought it was a good time to sell it and to start the process.
[00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:07.360] Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:08.720] You might be quoting me.
[00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:18.000] So I have this quote that I've said several times: where funded companies fail when they run out of money and bootstrapped companies fail when the founders run out of motivation.
[00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:18.320] Yeah.
[00:05:18.640 --> 00:05:19.760] I think that might be it.
[00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:20.080] Yeah.
[00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:24.960] Yeah, I tweeted that and I've said it on the show before because that's usually what happens, especially if you're bootstrapping.
[00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:25.920] Like, why would you stop?
[00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:32.920] But, you know, if you do plateau or you've done it for 10 years, I mean, I've started feeling that same thing with, frankly, with Drewp.
[00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:37.240] And at one point with MicroConf, although I'm now I have renewed energy around MicroConf and Tiny Seed.
[00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:41.080] But yeah, so I think that makes a lot of sense.
[00:05:41.080 --> 00:05:45.080] Now I want to ask you the big question: the end of the hero's journey.
[00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:49.400] The day the cash hit the bank account, you refresh the bank balance.
[00:05:49.400 --> 00:05:58.440] I bet you and Kevin were in touch and you're just waiting for millions of dollars to go in more money than you've ever seen or probably ever imagined you would have.
[00:05:58.440 --> 00:06:01.400] What would describe that feeling to me?
[00:06:01.400 --> 00:06:03.480] So it was very funny.
[00:06:03.480 --> 00:06:11.640] It was a bit anticlimactic in a sense that the whole closing day was done remotely.
[00:06:11.640 --> 00:06:17.560] So we had lawyers in the US, investors in the US, so Tiny Seed.
[00:06:17.640 --> 00:06:22.680] We had the buyer in Lithuania and us in South France.
[00:06:22.680 --> 00:06:32.520] So you do all those docusign, you have proof of the buyer, send the proof of wire transfer, and then you just wait.
[00:06:32.520 --> 00:06:36.120] So it was for three to four hours.
[00:06:36.120 --> 00:06:43.000] And when I actually received the notification refreshing the bank account, I was just relieved.
[00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.160] Like I didn't want to jump.
[00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:46.680] And actually, I took a nap.
[00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:53.640] I took a, I think, a two-hour, 40-minute nap because I had slept only four hours the night before.
[00:06:53.640 --> 00:07:04.920] And it was very, very stressful those last few hours because you have all those lawyers talking about the last few details of the SPA, so the final agreement.
[00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:07.960] So it was a lot of relief, actually.
[00:07:08.280 --> 00:07:19.760] Then you have to start announcing stuff to the team, although they knew we were getting acquired, but you know, you're making it official, you're introduced to the acquirer Slack channel.
[00:07:20.080 --> 00:07:25.440] So it was, yeah, a pretty hectic day, a very good one.
[00:07:25.440 --> 00:07:27.760] Yeah, just a lot of relief.
[00:07:27.760 --> 00:07:34.160] I remember afterwards, after my day was over, I just took a one-hour walk.
[00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:42.560] I called my parents and my grandfather to tell them that it's over, it's been sold, and this time it worked.
[00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:47.520] Yeah, that was anticlimactic, but a beautiful day for me.
[00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:52.400] And did you send Kevin an emoji of you like flipping dollar bills or anything?
[00:07:52.400 --> 00:07:52.960] Yeah.
[00:07:52.960 --> 00:07:55.040] So for Kevin, actually.
[00:07:55.360 --> 00:08:06.080] So yeah, I can probably share it, but the day we closed, his wife was actually delivering his baby, you know.
[00:08:06.080 --> 00:08:10.960] So it was a very hectic day for him to talk about.
[00:08:10.960 --> 00:08:11.440] Yeah.
[00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:14.480] So it follows the process from afar.
[00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:22.480] Of course, I went to the maternity, I dropped some flowers because it was just a few few minutes from home.
[00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:26.880] But yeah, we celebrated through Slack.
[00:08:27.280 --> 00:08:27.920] Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:29.360] We, Slack.
[00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:33.920] Okay, so after you're sold, we're going to get into what Scraping B is and kind of, you know, more of your story.
[00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:39.840] But I know I saw on Twitter at some point that you had bought yourself a bunch of Legos.
[00:08:40.160 --> 00:08:41.440] A bunch of Lego sets.
[00:08:41.680 --> 00:08:46.080] But was that after the exit or was that after hitting 5 million ARRI?
[00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:49.520] Yeah, so it fell after the 5 million ARR.
[00:08:49.520 --> 00:08:56.400] So I, you know, just buying big bucks and just storing them, hoping the value goes up.
[00:08:56.400 --> 00:08:56.800] Yeah.
[00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:06.680] It was funny because I was able to just buy everything I wanted because Lego are expensive, but it's not like cars or jewelry or whatever.
[00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.560] So at the end of the day, it's not that big of a deal.
[00:09:09.560 --> 00:09:12.120] So yeah, so just fun stuff.
[00:09:12.440 --> 00:09:21.320] People talk about like the different levels of wealth where it's like going to fast food, you know, when you're a teenager or frankly growing up, like we just didn't have money.
[00:09:21.320 --> 00:09:24.520] So even fast food, it was like, oh, it was rare we did it, right?
[00:09:24.520 --> 00:09:30.920] But at a certain point, maybe you have $50,000 in a bank, like going to fast food, you don't look at the menu prices anymore, right?
[00:09:30.920 --> 00:09:31.720] You just buy which one.
[00:09:31.880 --> 00:09:35.000] And there's a point where you go to a restaurant and you don't look at the menu prices anymore.
[00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:36.680] And then you go to an expensive restaurant and you don't do it.
[00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:40.760] And then your hotel or your Airbnb, you just stop kind of looking at the price very much.
[00:09:40.760 --> 00:09:48.840] And obviously for some people, maybe it's sports cars or whatever, but getting to the point of Lego being that is pretty good.
[00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:49.320] Pretty good.
[00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:51.720] This is what thank you, H, thank you, HTML.
[00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:52.120] Yeah.
[00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:53.080] Is that what you said?
[00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:53.320] Exactly.
[00:09:53.400 --> 00:09:56.760] Yeah, this was my thank you HTML tweet, basically.
[00:09:57.400 --> 00:09:57.960] Yep.
[00:09:57.960 --> 00:09:58.440] All right.
[00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:00.440] So let's talk about Scraping B.
[00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:04.280] So you're H1, tired of getting blocked while scraping the web.
[00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:12.760] The Scraping B web Scraping API handles headless browsers, rotates proxies for you, and offers AI-powered data extraction.
[00:10:12.760 --> 00:10:19.000] Now, you and Kevin started this, what was it, 2018, 19?
[00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:20.280] 2019.
[00:10:20.280 --> 00:10:21.400] 2019.
[00:10:21.400 --> 00:10:23.480] But this was not your first idea.
[00:10:23.480 --> 00:10:25.960] Like you tried B2C, you tried B2B.
[00:10:25.960 --> 00:10:31.240] In fact, you did a really good Microconf talk on YouTube that we'll link up in the show notes.
[00:10:31.240 --> 00:10:35.400] And you gave it when you guys were about, you were at about 1.5 million ARR at the time.
[00:10:35.400 --> 00:10:39.960] So, if they want to hear about how you found the idea of Scraping B, they can go do that.
[00:10:39.960 --> 00:10:46.640] But having done B2C, B2B, had failures, and then had this outsized success.
[00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:49.200] Is there any, like, what are the, what are the differences?
[00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:53.360] Like, why did Scraping B work when these previous ideas didn't?
[00:10:53.360 --> 00:11:08.480] So, I think the first main reason was I would say funder product fit or funder audience fit in a way that our first serious SAS was a price monitoring tool for e-commerce owners.
[00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:13.120] We were, you know, it was at a time where drop shipping was very hot.
[00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:20.560] We built a tool allowing to monitor prices and all, but we didn't know e-commerce and we didn't know to talk to e-commerce people.
[00:11:20.560 --> 00:11:25.920] We didn't know where those people hanged out on the web, what their problem were.
[00:11:25.920 --> 00:11:31.680] So, we basically built a product waiting for a solution, you know, waiting for a problem.
[00:11:31.680 --> 00:11:37.520] What changed with Scraping B is like with Kevin, we were a developer and we did a lot of web scraping.
[00:11:37.520 --> 00:11:44.800] So, it was a mix of dog footing because we used a product like Scraping B when building pricing bot.
[00:11:44.800 --> 00:11:46.640] And yeah, product audience fit.
[00:11:46.640 --> 00:11:53.680] Like, Kevin had a book and a blog about web scraping in Java, which was quite popular in that niche.
[00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:58.640] You know, afterwards, it sounds very obvious, like, why haven't we started with that?
[00:11:58.640 --> 00:12:07.280] But I think what changed the most, the audience and knowing the people you want to sell it to.
[00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:14.640] Do I remember correctly that you or you and Kevin had authored a book about web scraping?
[00:12:14.640 --> 00:12:16.640] Yeah, he did, about web scraping in Java.
[00:12:16.640 --> 00:12:18.480] Yeah, he had a blog and a book.
[00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:19.600] Yeah, he did.
[00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:23.360] Because that was, I remember when we interviewed you for Tiny Seed, because you were early.
[00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:28.720] You were at like 1K MRR, maybe, which is, which is like right on the edge for us.
[00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:36.520] But A, we really liked you and Kevin, and B, this book, it's like, oh, you wrote a book, you know a bunch about this.
[00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:40.760] And I think you guys had a kind of a small audience in the web scraping space because of that.
[00:12:40.760 --> 00:12:42.040] And we're like, you know what?
[00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:44.840] We're going to take a bet on these guys, you know?
[00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:46.520] And it was part of it, you know?
[00:12:46.520 --> 00:12:52.680] And it's again, you know, if you listen to the show at all, people know I don't put a lot behind having an audience per se, right?
[00:12:52.680 --> 00:12:59.160] To build SaaS, because it's like you can only sell to a very small portion of that and it doesn't actually get you very far.
[00:12:59.160 --> 00:13:01.240] But that's not what we weren't betting on the audience.
[00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:16.120] We were betting on the two of you being these smart people who had built this, had launched it, had some kind of wounds under your belt in terms of having some failures and had written a book and had gotten it out there.
[00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:24.280] And then my memory was even after, I have some notes here from producer Ron that after a year, after the Tiny Seed year, you were only at about 8K MRR.
[00:13:24.280 --> 00:13:28.600] But then 15 months after that, you were at a million ARR.
[00:13:28.920 --> 00:13:32.600] So do you remember what changed in that?
[00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:35.800] Yeah, because that's a striking difference.
[00:13:35.800 --> 00:13:36.840] Definitely.
[00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:50.200] So what I remember is that for the first few months of Scraping B, so we tried to leverage Kevin audience, but as you said, it was not such a big audience.
[00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:56.520] And here, knowledge of the space was more valuable than having an audience.
[00:13:56.520 --> 00:14:05.160] But it was very, you know, things that on scale, we were hanging out on forums, Reddit, and stuff like that.
[00:14:05.160 --> 00:14:13.720] And then, what really changed during the year, we grew very fast, is that we started writing a lot more content.
[00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:22.640] So, first eight months, we spent a lot of time writing some very good content, but the output was quite small because it was only Kevin and I.
[00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:40.560] And then, so, thanks to Tiny C Money, of course, and also to a few advice that made us focus on what works, we just decided to go all in on SEO, and that's what we did, and what really fueled that growth.
[00:14:40.560 --> 00:14:46.320] Then, of course, we're doing tons of product optimization, onboarding, and stuff.
[00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:55.360] But at the end of the day, what really mattered the most was the SEO, and it was thanks to Kevin because he basically split roles.
[00:14:55.360 --> 00:15:02.480] So, we're bus developers, but at some point, we're like, okay, Kevin, you're going to do marketing, I'm going to do product and tech.
[00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:04.560] And Kevin wanted to do that.
[00:15:04.560 --> 00:15:07.440] And so, I remember it was during COVID.
[00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:17.520] And so, he watched the AHRF course, blogging for businesses, which they have just made free during COVID.
[00:15:17.520 --> 00:15:28.000] And yeah, from there, it was just non-stop finding content writer, publishing good content, listening to Ruben Games' advices a lot.
[00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:29.440] He helped us a lot.
[00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:31.840] I know he helped Kevin a lot.
[00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:35.120] And yeah, that was the main point.
[00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:36.480] I remember that now.
[00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:46.560] And I do remember, you know, folks who listen to the podcast will know Ruben is my go-to for freemium, for SEO, for content, for hot takes on AI and such.
[00:15:46.560 --> 00:16:09.400] And that was a good part of, I think, for you guys being part of Tiny Seed is that Ruben is in batch two from 2020, I think, and is very generous, especially with Tiny Seed Founders, about his detailed knowledge, because he knows that you're not going to, you know, he's not going to go on Twitter and write out everything that he does, right, or share it with a random person, but he is willing to kind of give up the real details, right, of how it's really done.
[00:16:09.400 --> 00:16:11.000] Yeah, no, it was awesome.
[00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:11.960] As are you guys now?
[00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:12.360] It's great.
[00:16:12.520 --> 00:16:19.480] You know, when I have someone who I see content, a Tiny Sea founder, who content or SEO is working for, I'm like, all right, talk to Kevin and Pierre, talk to Ruben.
[00:16:19.480 --> 00:16:20.200] There's a few others.
[00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:26.520] You know, there's content obviously is a very powerful force for bootstrappers because it scales so well.
[00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:27.720] And that's something that you guys did.
[00:16:27.720 --> 00:16:33.560] I want to call out is like when you and Kevin were writing everything, it was a little slow going, right?
[00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:35.000] Because you can only produce so much.
[00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:48.280] But you figured out how to do something that a lot of folks don't, which is how do I hire writers and or editors who can kind of produce a content machine rather than just the founders doing it.
[00:16:48.280 --> 00:16:50.760] And it's easy to do that poorly.
[00:16:50.760 --> 00:16:53.240] It's easy to hire people that turn out articles.
[00:16:53.240 --> 00:16:55.640] I've done that myself in the past.
[00:16:55.640 --> 00:17:13.800] So what was that process like to build that engine, that content engine that, because we as founders, like especially folks who are like yourself, who are really good on social media, who are really clever and who have a lot of hot takes that are interesting and get people thinking and talking, our standard for this type of stuff is really high.
[00:17:13.800 --> 00:17:20.600] Like you're not going to publish an article about web scraping using Node or JavaScript or whatever that doesn't meet your standard.
[00:17:20.600 --> 00:17:22.760] And that standard is a nine and a half out of 10, right?
[00:17:22.760 --> 00:17:26.120] So how did you possibly build that engine?
[00:17:26.120 --> 00:17:32.120] So first thing is that, so our audience were a developer and we wanted to build, you know, skyscraper techniques.
[00:17:32.200 --> 00:17:37.080] So the big possible stuff you can write, educational content.
[00:17:37.080 --> 00:17:44.680] And so, first, we started looking for developers who wanted to write and not for writers who knew a bit how to code.
[00:17:44.880 --> 00:18:00.080] So, with that in mind, we were able to have writers who were really in terms of technology, like technologically very top-notch, you know, they knew everything there is to know about their language framework or whatever.
[00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:06.400] Then, and I think I'm pretty sure it was Kevin's ID, we hired an editor.
[00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:13.040] So, basically, this one was a writer who knew a bit about web scraping, but doesn't matter.
[00:18:13.040 --> 00:18:23.680] And his role, and I think he's still working with us to this day, was to review every single piece of content and making them more enjoyable.
[00:18:23.680 --> 00:18:30.960] You know, sometimes a writer will not be English speaking, you know, English will not be first language and all.
[00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:41.280] So, really focusing on developers who want to write, then have an editor review everything, then have a bit of SEO knowledge to optimize it.
[00:18:41.280 --> 00:18:44.560] And you just keep going, keep going, keep going.
[00:18:44.560 --> 00:19:03.280] And so, we were not publishing a lot of content, you know, only three to four blog posts per month, I think, which is way less than what some companies are able to do, but it was sufficient to be, yeah, at some point, I think we were the second biggest web scraping blog on the internet.
[00:19:03.280 --> 00:19:05.040] So, that worked.
[00:19:05.040 --> 00:19:07.120] The articles were long, was my memory.
[00:19:07.120 --> 00:19:08.160] Is that right?
[00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:10.800] Like 4,000 words, 3,000?
[00:19:11.120 --> 00:19:15.760] Yeah, so I think 20 minutes reading time, so that's about that.
[00:19:15.760 --> 00:19:21.520] And we did one for, you know, once you have something that works for Python, you can do all the language.
[00:19:21.520 --> 00:19:25.840] Once you've done the language, you can do the framework and some library.
[00:19:25.840 --> 00:19:30.840] So, it's like really easy to duplicate content ID.
[00:19:29.840 --> 00:19:35.000] Issue started when everyone started doing the same.
[00:19:35.320 --> 00:19:44.520] So, because you know, SEO is a zero-sum game, there is only one Google page, page rank zero.
[00:19:44.680 --> 00:19:46.280] So, we had to diversify.
[00:19:46.280 --> 00:19:50.680] But for the first two years, yeah, that worked very, very well.
[00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:59.240] What's interesting is that there's a good chunk of tiny seed companies that take the money and they say, you know, the money is great, but I didn't actually need it.
[00:19:59.240 --> 00:20:01.960] What I really wanted was the community, the mentorship, the advice.
[00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:04.920] But it sounds like the money actually did make a difference for you guys.
[00:20:04.920 --> 00:20:08.840] It made a mental difference because it was during COVID.
[00:20:08.840 --> 00:20:12.680] We had only, I don't know, 15k in the bank when we received it.
[00:20:12.680 --> 00:20:17.720] We were lucky enough because growth meant we haven't actually touched it.
[00:20:17.720 --> 00:20:23.240] But if we hadn't received the money, we wouldn't have spent it.
[00:20:23.240 --> 00:20:36.920] You know, I don't know if I'm clear, but it's like you know, it gave us mental safety and reassurance that, yeah, we can spend a bit more, that we can pay ourselves finally a decent amount of money.
[00:20:36.920 --> 00:20:40.840] So, yeah, money helped a bit to give mental clarity.
[00:20:40.840 --> 00:20:45.000] And yeah, support and mentoring helped the most.
[00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:46.920] Basically, we had access.
[00:20:46.920 --> 00:20:53.400] So, again, it was COVID lockdown, we were in a countryside, France, with Kevin.
[00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:58.520] So, not the perfect place and time to talk with people who built SAS.
[00:20:58.520 --> 00:21:05.000] And in the Slack, we had access to experts in everything: SEO pricing, copywriting.
[00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:19.760] I remember Jana Pach helped a lot there, ANR for pricing, and many other people who just gave us free 30 minutes, one hour consulting call, and it was very, very helpful.
[00:21:20.080 --> 00:21:29.840] Yeah, that's what I was going to ask: was like, what, you know, obviously, you have this great tweet from yesterday, and you said getting funded through Tiny Seed was a game changer for Scraping Bee.
[00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:32.800] We kept the best benefit a bootstrapper can have, optionality.
[00:21:32.800 --> 00:21:39.280] We were never forced to raise more, but we always knew we could if we wanted to, and it gave us enough funding to meaningfully accelerate our growth.
[00:21:39.280 --> 00:21:45.920] But the best part, the advisors, the mentors, the experts that make up the Tiny Seed community were here for us when we needed it most.
[00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:52.640] So today, I guess we're coming full circle as I'm very happy to become an investor in fund three, which makes me, me and AR, I love it.
[00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:55.680] It's such so great to build your own investors.
[00:21:55.680 --> 00:21:57.840] But it sounds like it all made a difference.
[00:21:57.840 --> 00:22:01.120] Like the money made perhaps less of a difference, I guess.
[00:22:01.120 --> 00:22:06.000] But the advisors, the mentors, the experts, and the advice got you there faster, right?
[00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:15.280] See, I believe you would have gotten there eventually, but maybe it would have taken you extra years, or maybe you would have, it would have been slow enough that there would have been other competitors.
[00:22:15.280 --> 00:22:16.400] You know, you don't know, right?
[00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:18.000] You don't know the sliding doors.
[00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:19.280] Yeah, you don't know.
[00:22:19.280 --> 00:22:27.440] We talked about it with Kevin, and I think last year we said, I think TinySeed made us save two years.
[00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:30.240] And at that time, the company was four years old.
[00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:38.720] So it made us grow twice as fast, which is huge, you know, especially when time is your most valuable asset.
[00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:40.160] Yeah, that's really good to hear.
[00:22:40.160 --> 00:22:48.800] That's really good to hear you put a number to it, you know, and it's, I don't know, just makes me happy because that's why we do it, you know, is to help people, people get there faster.
[00:22:48.800 --> 00:22:53.280] Now, did you, was this pretty steady growth once you started that trajectory with the Content SEO?
[00:22:53.280 --> 00:22:54.720] Did you have any very steady?
[00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:56.880] Yeah, you didn't have any plateaus, right?
[00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:59.480] We have early signs of plateau.
[00:22:59.280 --> 00:23:09.480] So, so because in SAS, you know, if you analyze churn, and basically, when your growth is not growing, you're going to get a plateau because of churn.
[00:23:09.480 --> 00:23:23.640] So, we had a plateau coming in, and at that time, we made some, yeah, meaningful updates to the product and to pricing because you know, we were commodity product.
[00:23:23.640 --> 00:23:35.000] And we bought the idea that you shouldn't care about your competitors' prices and all, but I think it's just I mean, for us, it was completely wrong.
[00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.560] I mean, you cannot just ignore it, especially in our market.
[00:23:39.880 --> 00:23:49.240] We're yeah, commodity products, so you need to be you need to have a sexy pricing table if you want people to at least give you a chance.
[00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:52.760] So, let's talk about the sale process, the exit.
[00:23:52.760 --> 00:23:56.680] You and Kevin got together and decided it was time to sell.
[00:23:56.680 --> 00:24:00.440] Was there, I want to ask you, like, how did you decide it was time to sell?
[00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:05.800] I guess is the first thing, and then talk a little bit about how it actually went down.
[00:24:06.120 --> 00:24:23.160] So, actually, if we're talking about the early start of the process, it was 18 months ago when we sat down with Kevin, we saw revenue, growth, churn, margin, business was in good state, we were a bit exhausted.
[00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:29.640] So, we started a full process with Discretion Capital, our MA advisor.
[00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:40.520] We went through the process of building a pitch, you know, selling a story to potential acquirer and doing some interviews and then getting some offer.
[00:24:40.520 --> 00:24:49.680] And then we just received, we received a big frightening season disease from one of the five biggest tech companies in the world.
[00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:53.360] Of course, everyone got frightened about it.
[00:24:53.360 --> 00:24:56.480] We had to abort the sales process.
[00:24:56.480 --> 00:24:59.520] We were like, okay, it's not going to happen this year.
[00:24:59.520 --> 00:25:01.120] We want to try again in a year.
[00:25:01.120 --> 00:25:05.040] What can we do to make the process smoother next year?
[00:25:05.040 --> 00:25:08.960] So actually, it was a year-long process.
[00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:22.880] So two big things we did was to hire more to standardize operation, document a bit everything, and to have all the accounting stuff ready, you know, in GAP format.
[00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:27.920] We're a French company, so it was a bit of work for us, but very helpful.
[00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:36.000] And so fast forward a year, we're in August with Kevin, and it's like, okay, I want to start again to sell the business.
[00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:37.680] Number were still good.
[00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:41.280] We talked with Zenar, was like, okay, let's do it again.
[00:25:41.280 --> 00:25:49.200] And so obviously that time it was a bit faster because the whole pitch was ready, the accounting stuff were all there.
[00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:59.520] And yeah, so the way it works is like you prepare a pitch, you prepare some name you want your advisor to reach out to, then the advisor.
[00:25:59.520 --> 00:26:01.440] So here it is Creation Capital.
[00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:04.960] You know, they're just there, were our salesmen.
[00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:11.680] So basically talking to all those people, being like, okay, Scraping B want to sell, are you interested in it?
[00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:13.280] You can sign this NDA.
[00:26:13.280 --> 00:26:15.360] Here are all those numbers.
[00:26:15.360 --> 00:26:18.880] They filter out answer use buyers.
[00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:22.720] Then you start to book some interviews with them.
[00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:27.920] So, you know, people want to know the team, ask questions such as, why are you selling?
[00:26:27.920 --> 00:26:32.840] Where do you see web scraping industry coming forward in the next few years?
[00:26:32.840 --> 00:26:33.960] How much do you want?
[00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:37.160] For how much do you sell the business from?
[00:26:37.480 --> 00:26:40.920] And we're Enr or Scott who answers every time.
[00:26:40.920 --> 00:26:44.920] We're not in the valuation business, so we don't give valuation advice.
[00:26:44.920 --> 00:26:49.960] And so we just let the buyer give the first offer.
[00:26:49.960 --> 00:26:54.840] And then you get the LOI, you ship around a bit, try to negotiate.
[00:26:54.840 --> 00:26:57.400] And then you sign the first LOI.
[00:26:57.400 --> 00:27:06.600] So between first speech and signing of LOI, I think it took three to four months and then starts the due diligence.
[00:27:07.480 --> 00:27:10.440] Now, did you get multiple offers?
[00:27:11.080 --> 00:27:14.280] Yeah, we got three multiple offers.
[00:27:14.280 --> 00:27:21.960] So two that you could consider strategic ones and one from a private equity fund.
[00:27:21.960 --> 00:27:30.680] What was interesting is that the private equity fund offer was very seducing for a private equity fund.
[00:27:30.680 --> 00:27:34.200] You know, usually their multiple are much lower.
[00:27:34.200 --> 00:27:43.480] But we ended up working with Oxylabs group because we really wanted to sell to someone who knew the industry.
[00:27:43.480 --> 00:27:46.440] Because web scraping is very particular.
[00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:49.320] There is some legal risk when you're doing web scraping.
[00:27:49.320 --> 00:27:52.120] Lots of companies are not happy that you're doing it.
[00:27:52.120 --> 00:27:56.600] And so we didn't want to relieve what happened to us one year prior.
[00:27:56.600 --> 00:28:05.480] And so selling to the biggest actor in this industry obviously, smoothened out the risk because he knows about everything.
[00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:09.080] He had the same struggles as we used to add.
[00:28:09.080 --> 00:28:14.800] And he wanted to really acquire the company to make it grow bigger and better.
[00:28:14.360 --> 00:28:17.920] So this was very what seduced us.
[00:28:18.080 --> 00:28:23.520] And it was also a full cash offer, which was the best for us.
[00:28:23.520 --> 00:28:24.880] Yeah, which makes total sense.
[00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:28.880] So that's, yeah, it's ANR Volsette, who many folks who listen to this podcast know.
[00:28:29.280 --> 00:28:39.120] He comes on for Hot Take Tuesdays, and my co-founder with Tiny Seed, discretioncapital.com, if folks are between, if you're between about 2 and 20 million ARR, they only do the sell-side MA.
[00:28:39.120 --> 00:28:41.040] So they're always on the founder side.
[00:28:41.040 --> 00:28:44.080] And I know you had a great, great experience with them.
[00:28:44.080 --> 00:28:45.200] Yeah, definitely.
[00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:53.280] I don't want to gloss over the cease and desist that you received because the first time you receive a cease and desist, it feels like it's going to be the end of the world.
[00:28:53.280 --> 00:29:00.480] And what I tell Tiny Seed founders, because I believe we talked about it, but it's like across 200 and how many do we have now?
[00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:05.120] 212 investments, 204 investments, I think, just through Tiny Seed.
[00:29:05.120 --> 00:29:11.200] We see a cease and desist at least once a quarter, sometimes every two months, just because it's a law of large numbers.
[00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:19.600] Now, we also see co-founders implode about once a quarter, and we see, you know, an app get hacked once a year, maybe, you know, and it's again, it's just large numbers.
[00:29:19.600 --> 00:29:24.720] So for us, while we know it's scary, it is usually not business ending.
[00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:27.920] Now, that's not to say it can't be, but it usually isn't.
[00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:33.600] Usually there's a way around it, whether you change what you're doing or whether they just leave you alone or whatever.
[00:29:33.600 --> 00:29:39.600] So I know you can't go into extreme detail about exactly what happened, but did that just kind of go away?
[00:29:39.600 --> 00:29:42.000] Did you respond to it at all?
[00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:42.560] Yeah.
[00:29:42.560 --> 00:29:49.120] So, you know, we received, it was a big season disease and dislike really a business freighting one.
[00:29:49.120 --> 00:29:56.160] Like they were asking for full code base, full customer base, full revenue made, scraping their website.
[00:29:56.160 --> 00:29:59.640] They wanted us to stop scraping their property.
[00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:02.040] And, you know, it can go very far.
[00:30:02.200 --> 00:30:08.440] Like, the worst case scenario was really us in jail and the company closed.
[00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:11.960] So that was a bit frightening.
[00:30:11.960 --> 00:30:21.560] But what happened is that first we were advised by very good lawyers who drafted very good answer.
[00:30:21.560 --> 00:30:30.120] But the most critical part that they sent those kind of season disease to all the web scraping companies in the world.
[00:30:30.120 --> 00:30:35.720] And one of them, one of the biggest web scraping companies, won against them.
[00:30:35.720 --> 00:30:37.800] And it was very public.
[00:30:37.800 --> 00:30:43.720] So they no longer had a case with us because we would just say, look, what you're reproaching us.
[00:30:43.960 --> 00:30:44.600] Case law.
[00:30:44.600 --> 00:30:44.840] Yeah.
[00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:48.200] You know, so this is what saved us.
[00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:51.400] And not saved us, but what closed the issue.
[00:30:51.400 --> 00:30:52.680] We had plan B.
[00:30:52.680 --> 00:30:56.040] We could have always stopped scraping this website.
[00:30:56.040 --> 00:30:59.560] We would have lost, I don't know, 10-15% revenue.
[00:30:59.560 --> 00:31:02.360] But that was what happened.
[00:31:02.360 --> 00:31:11.320] So it took six months for it to settle completely, but it settled by them no longer answering to us.
[00:31:11.640 --> 00:31:13.480] So it died.
[00:31:13.800 --> 00:31:14.520] It died.
[00:31:14.760 --> 00:31:15.720] As they usually do.
[00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:20.840] They either kind of settle, as you said, you need your plan A, B, C, D, and E.
[00:31:20.840 --> 00:31:24.120] Plan A is we just tell them to go F themselves and then they back off, right?
[00:31:24.120 --> 00:31:27.560] Plan B is we send them some documentation and we maybe adjust our approach.
[00:31:27.560 --> 00:31:31.080] And plan C is we just stop scraping the site and we lose 10 to 15 percent.
[00:31:31.320 --> 00:31:33.480] You know, that's like the worst, the worst case almost.
[00:31:33.800 --> 00:31:35.000] Not the worst case, as you said.
[00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:37.360] The worst case, you wind up in jail, but that's just so.
[00:31:37.360 --> 00:31:38.760] They don't actually want that.
[00:31:38.760 --> 00:31:39.960] They don't actually want that.
[00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:46.240] No, but it was the worst case, like just a drafting anti-piracy act in the U.S.
[00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:48.320] and it California law.
[00:31:48.320 --> 00:31:50.400] And it's scare tactics.
[00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:51.680] Yeah, it's scared tactics.
[00:31:51.760 --> 00:31:52.320] Yeah.
[00:31:52.640 --> 00:32:01.680] So then, due diligence, let's walk through this part because this is the part where you know you talk due diligence and you have you had a more painful time of your life?
[00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:03.280] Like, how was due diligence for you?
[00:32:03.280 --> 00:32:04.000] Were you stressed?
[00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:06.800] Was it as awful as I often make it out on this show?
[00:32:06.800 --> 00:32:21.600] Yeah, so it was funny because I remember the day we signed the LY, so the day the due diligence started, you sent me a PDF or your of your exit book, which I've read during my flight back from Phoenix.
[00:32:21.600 --> 00:32:23.040] Because this was before it was published.
[00:32:23.040 --> 00:32:24.240] This was several months before.
[00:32:24.640 --> 00:32:26.640] Yeah, it was very helpful.
[00:32:26.640 --> 00:32:30.880] And yeah, I've read about this due diligence part, how awful it is.
[00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:36.400] So it was bad, but two things made it easier for us.
[00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:37.840] I think three things.
[00:32:37.840 --> 00:32:39.840] So first, I had a co-founder.
[00:32:39.840 --> 00:32:49.440] And so, honestly, without Kevin, it would have been much harder, especially because Kevin is much calmer than I am.
[00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:52.800] We had lots of accounting issues during due diligence.
[00:32:52.800 --> 00:32:58.240] No big deal, but you know, it was French accounting and also lots of questions regarding this.
[00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:01.200] And so Kevin worked on it very well.
[00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:04.320] It really made due diligence lighter.
[00:33:04.320 --> 00:33:08.720] Secondly, we were prepared because we've read a lot about it.
[00:33:08.720 --> 00:33:12.160] Your book, blog post, Discretion Capital.
[00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:14.160] We had some documents ready.
[00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:31.080] And third, the acquirer was really not friendly, but cooperative, you know, like not trying to find the slightest default to try to retrade or not trying to to nitpick the smallest detail, trying to to give a lot of pressure.
[00:33:31.240 --> 00:33:44.920] I mean, it was serious business, it was important stuff, it needed to be done, but we never felt we were working with someone who didn't want to welcome us very soon.
[00:33:44.920 --> 00:33:53.000] So, those three things made it very stressful, but probably not as bad as some founder had it.
[00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:55.320] Yeah, and how long was Didi?
[00:33:55.640 --> 00:33:59.400] It was quite long because of those accounting stuff.
[00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:07.880] So, the way it worked, basically, we had an audit cabinet, just redoing our four years of accounting from the ground up.
[00:34:07.880 --> 00:34:10.520] So, so, so it lasted, I think, three months.
[00:34:10.520 --> 00:34:11.000] Three months.
[00:34:11.080 --> 00:34:11.800] Oh, that's long.
[00:34:11.800 --> 00:34:12.040] Yeah.
[00:34:12.040 --> 00:34:12.440] Yeah.
[00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:18.600] It's long and stressful because you just every day you wake up and you want, A, you don't sleep well, and B, you then wake up tired.
[00:34:18.600 --> 00:34:22.920] And every day, I remember I'm thinking, is this the day it all just goes sideways?
[00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:24.200] Is this the day they back out?
[00:34:24.200 --> 00:34:25.480] Is this the day they find something?
[00:34:25.480 --> 00:34:26.840] Is this the day we screw something up?
[00:34:26.840 --> 00:34:31.640] Is this the day that even is this the day that the stock market drops by 30, 40 percent?
[00:34:31.640 --> 00:34:34.920] You know, any Black Swan event can happen.
[00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:35.320] Yeah.
[00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:37.960] A terrorist attack, like God forbid, just anything can happen.
[00:34:37.960 --> 00:34:40.360] And suddenly, these deals don't go through.
[00:34:40.360 --> 00:34:43.080] And so you're like, I want this to go as fast as possible.
[00:34:43.080 --> 00:34:44.040] Did you feel that as well?
[00:34:44.040 --> 00:34:45.400] Because I felt that the entire time.
[00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:47.400] Yeah, I was very afraid of that.
[00:34:47.400 --> 00:34:51.240] So very afraid of receiving another season disease.
[00:34:51.240 --> 00:35:01.400] So although Oxylabs was weeping company, like I remember every letter we received during those three months, I was scared to open it.
[00:35:01.400 --> 00:35:04.440] Like, is it the IRS asking for an audit?
[00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:09.880] Is it, I don't know, a big tech company sending season disease?
[00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:15.120] So this was very frightening, especially because we had it happen.
[00:35:14.600 --> 00:35:17.360] So we almost sold the business two times.
[00:35:17.680 --> 00:35:24.880] So one time season diseased, but the time before, we were two weeks before closing the business.
[00:35:24.880 --> 00:35:30.080] And we actually received an email from the acquirer telling us, hey, we need to talk.
[00:35:30.080 --> 00:35:33.280] And boom, they no longer wanted to twice the business.
[00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:37.040] So yeah, Black Swan event was what frightened me the most.
[00:35:37.040 --> 00:35:42.080] I wasn't scared about everything else because we had no, we were not hiding anything.
[00:35:42.080 --> 00:35:48.960] It was a small team, clean cut base, no big trouble with customers and all, and growing stuff.
[00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:51.840] But yeah, Black Swan, scary.
[00:35:52.160 --> 00:35:58.720] So then you close, and we can smash cut back to the beginning of this episode when I said, you know, how did it feel when money hit the bank account?
[00:35:58.720 --> 00:36:03.040] And you had already, but you'd already bought the Lego sets when you hit 5 million.
[00:36:03.040 --> 00:36:07.520] Did you buy any crazy or cool things after the exit?
[00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:17.360] So what we did, we went to Paris with my girlfriend of 10 years and we went to a very nice hotel.
[00:36:17.360 --> 00:36:29.760] So this was, I think, our celebration gift to ourselves because it was also stressful for her and she was very, you know, helpful during this period.
[00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:34.240] So I think this was the biggest treat we gave to ourselves.
[00:36:34.240 --> 00:36:38.720] I was able to invite my father to MicroConf in New Orleans.
[00:36:38.720 --> 00:36:40.400] So he was with me.
[00:36:40.400 --> 00:36:44.240] So I took, yeah, it was a nice holiday with him.
[00:36:44.240 --> 00:36:51.760] And yeah, small gift to family, but no big, massive spending.
[00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:55.400] Aside from the three Lamborghinis that now sit out in the sun, yeah, outside of your fell.
[00:36:56.200 --> 00:36:58.720] Obviously, yeah, we obviously.
[00:36:58.720 --> 00:37:01.320] Well, man, huge congrats to you and Kevin.
[00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:02.520] Like, it's really well deserved.
[00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:03.640] You guys executed very well.
[00:37:03.800 --> 00:37:12.440] You worked hard and you worked on things that mattered and you shipped a lot quickly, and you were generally right about most of the stuff you were doing.
[00:37:12.440 --> 00:37:20.120] And so, I think you're kind of a shining example of someone who can bootstrap or mostly bootstrap to millions in ARR.
[00:37:20.120 --> 00:37:22.280] And you know, I would have every confidence.
[00:37:22.280 --> 00:37:33.400] I guess this leads to my next question: is like, have you ever thought to yourself, and you can say, Rob, too soon, too soon, don't ask me this, but have you thought to yourself whether you want to do it again at some point?
[00:37:33.400 --> 00:37:37.240] Because I believe you're still working for the acquirer right now, right?
[00:37:37.240 --> 00:37:41.320] Yeah, and so you know, that'll happen for however long it happens.
[00:37:41.320 --> 00:37:46.360] But when you move on, you have your freedom, you have enough money in the bank that you never have to work again.
[00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:50.120] You know, have you given any thought to what might be next for you?
[00:37:50.120 --> 00:37:50.840] A lot.
[00:37:50.840 --> 00:37:56.840] So, yeah, for now, I'm still working at Scraping B until at least early 2026.
[00:37:56.840 --> 00:37:59.640] And for what comes after, I think about it a lot.
[00:37:59.640 --> 00:38:01.800] We talked about it a lot with Kevin.
[00:38:01.800 --> 00:38:06.280] We don't know if it's going to be together or not, but we have lots of ideas.
[00:38:06.280 --> 00:38:25.080] I don't know if I want to do it again from scratch because those first few years are very, very slow, and I'm not in a position where I want to relieve that, you know, because grinding for a year and then after a year only reaching 6k MRR, like it's rough.
[00:38:25.320 --> 00:38:26.040] Pretty bad.
[00:38:26.040 --> 00:38:26.440] Yeah.
[00:38:26.440 --> 00:38:26.920] Yeah.
[00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:31.800] It's and it's hard the second time because you want it to be faster and you're like, you don't want to put in the pain.
[00:38:32.040 --> 00:38:39.720] The motivation, because the first time it's like, well, you know, I'm doing it to create an impact and to learn and to get rich so that I never have to work again.
[00:38:39.720 --> 00:38:42.600] The second time, it's like, how much am I learning this time?
[00:38:42.600 --> 00:38:43.720] I don't need to get rich.
[00:38:43.720 --> 00:38:44.280] I already have.
[00:38:44.280 --> 00:38:45.840] Like, it's like, oh, real.
[00:38:44.840 --> 00:38:47.440] It calls into question a lot of things.
[00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:53.440] But what I think I would like to do is to start early on with a small team.
[00:38:53.440 --> 00:39:03.440] You know, it doesn't have to be big, maybe three, four people, you know, to really put up something live real quick to try to fail faster, maybe.
[00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:14.000] But so I definitely want to start something again at some point, but it's probably not going to be the way we did Scraping B because we want to save time.
[00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:15.280] And you don't have to this time.
[00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:16.160] You have resources.
[00:39:16.160 --> 00:39:17.760] You could acquire something.
[00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:21.920] You couldn't we talk a lot about also.
[00:39:21.920 --> 00:39:22.720] Yep.
[00:39:22.720 --> 00:39:28.960] So, Pierre de Wolf, there's so much more to your story, but I'm going to bid you adieu today.
[00:39:29.120 --> 00:39:32.080] Folks want to follow you on X Twitter.
[00:39:32.080 --> 00:39:34.160] You are PierreDayWolf.
[00:39:34.160 --> 00:39:41.760] It's D-E-W-U-L-F, where you are a prolific and thought-provoking Twitterer.
[00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:43.120] So thanks so much for joining me.
[00:39:43.120 --> 00:39:44.640] Is there anything else you'd like folks to check out?
[00:39:44.640 --> 00:39:48.320] Like, do you have a personal blog or a YouTube channel I don't know about?
[00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:49.600] No personal blog.
[00:39:49.600 --> 00:40:00.560] I've started posting on LinkedIn a bit more, which was definitely a different audience, but you meet a lot of interesting folks there too.
[00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:03.360] So yeah, for now, that's it.
[00:40:03.360 --> 00:40:04.640] LinkedIn and XTwitter.
[00:40:04.640 --> 00:40:05.440] Well, thanks again, man.
[00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:07.120] It was great having you on to tell your story.
[00:40:07.120 --> 00:40:08.480] Thank you, Rob.
[00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:10.720] Thanks again to Pierre for coming on the show.
[00:40:10.720 --> 00:40:13.600] And thanks to you for listening this week and every week.
[00:40:13.600 --> 00:40:18.000] This is Rob Walling signing off from episode 783.

Prompt 2: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 3: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 4: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Full Transcript

[00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:02.320] Welcome to Startups for the Rest of Us.
[00:00:02.320 --> 00:00:03.760] I'm your host, Rob Walling.
[00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:17.600] In this week's episode, I talk with Pierre DeWolf, the co-founder of Scraping Bee, about how they mostly bootstrapped to $5 million in ARR and an eight-figure all-cash exit.
[00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:19.360] It's an incredible story.
[00:00:19.360 --> 00:00:23.280] We talk about some of their early struggles growing.
[00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:35.200] What changed when they went from growing, I think, $7K of MRR in a year and then suddenly grew almost 2 million ARR over the next 15 months.
[00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:36.560] And something changed there.
[00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:38.960] We dig into that early in the episode.
[00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:46.000] We find out any trophies that Pierre bought with the proceeds from their exit.
[00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:56.400] We talk about their thought process for deciding when to sell, why to sell, as well as some of the inner workings of the exit and just how hard it can be to sell a company.
[00:00:56.400 --> 00:01:03.360] If you know Pierre from XTwitter, you've seen his very thoughtful tweets about bootstrapping and indie hacking.
[00:01:03.360 --> 00:01:11.200] And he has what I consider a pretty insightful thought process about what it takes to be successful in this game.
[00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:19.600] Before we dive into the conversation, I am doing a live QA on Thursday, July 17th.
[00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:24.240] You will only get access to that if you are a member of MicroConf Connect.
[00:01:24.240 --> 00:01:30.400] MicroConf Connect is our amazing online community for bootstrapped and mostly bootstrapped founders.
[00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:35.360] Inside Connect, we have founder-to-founder discussions about what's working today in SAS.
[00:01:35.360 --> 00:01:40.320] We have live workshops and AMAs, including the one with me on July 17th.
[00:01:40.320 --> 00:01:46.400] And we have access to our content vault with recordings from every previous MicroConf event.
[00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:51.600] MicroConf Connect is $50 a month, and we charge for it to keep the quality up.
[00:01:51.600 --> 00:02:03.800] It's a gate that keeps the quality of the founders Inside very high, and it allows us to afford to pay a moderator to keep the conversation going and to make sure it's super high signal to noise.
[00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:07.960] MicroConf Connect.com if you're interested in checking it out.
[00:02:07.960 --> 00:02:11.320] And with that, let's dive into my conversation with Pierre.
[00:02:18.040 --> 00:02:21.080] Pierre DeWolf, it's a pleasure to have you on the show.
[00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:22.520] Hello, Rob Whaling.
[00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:24.360] Thank you for having me.
[00:02:24.680 --> 00:02:26.360] Yeah, it's great to have you on, man.
[00:02:26.360 --> 00:02:32.280] I think a lot of folks who listen to this show will know you from ex-Twitter.
[00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:38.120] You've been in the indie hacker community pretty prominent for many years now.
[00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:47.880] And you and your co-founder, Kevin, started Scraping Bee, and you recently sold it for an eight-figure all-cash exit.
[00:02:47.880 --> 00:02:51.720] No stock option shenanigans, as you put in your tweet.
[00:02:51.720 --> 00:03:04.680] But you've even had, I mean, other folks, you know, I think it was a month or two ago, I went through one of your tweets that was something like, what was it, like 12 or 20 hot takes about indie hacking that you may not agree with or whatever.
[00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:07.240] And I was like, I think I agreed with almost all of them.
[00:03:07.240 --> 00:03:09.240] You know, we were in agreement.
[00:03:09.240 --> 00:03:12.440] And your wisdom, I think, has, you know, been helpful for a lot of folks.
[00:03:12.440 --> 00:03:19.560] Last time that you were public about Scraping Bee's revenue, and Scraping Bee was mostly bootstrapped, effectively bootstrapped.
[00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:21.320] The only money you took was from Tiny Seed.
[00:03:21.480 --> 00:03:24.600] Last time you were public about it, you were at 5 million ARR.
[00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:27.960] And that's with two co-founders and a very small team.
[00:03:27.960 --> 00:03:30.360] I don't know, a handful of folks you're working with.
[00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:31.320] Four, yeah.
[00:03:31.320 --> 00:03:31.800] Four.
[00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:34.920] So it's, I mean, highly profitable.
[00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:43.800] Before I get to how did it feel when the money hit your bank account, and I want to know, you know, what you bought, the crazy, the crazy trophies you bought, why sell it all?
[00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:45.760] Why not just run it forever?
[00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:48.720] Yeah, that's actually a good question.
[00:03:49.040 --> 00:03:52.400] Definitely something we talked a lot about with Kevin.
[00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:54.080] And I think there's two things.
[00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:57.840] First, what this phrase, I don't remember who said it.
[00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:09.280] I think it was Naval, but like, most startup doesn't die because of money or stuff, but most startup dies because founders are tired, you know?
[00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:15.600] We've been running Scraping B for five, six years and doing web scraping for 10, 12 years.
[00:04:15.600 --> 00:04:22.640] And we just, we were not to the point where we were sick of it, but we were getting tired of doing web scraping.
[00:04:22.640 --> 00:04:24.160] We wanted something new.
[00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:30.400] And then the second point is like, the only way to know the top is to reach the top, you know?
[00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:36.400] So Scraping B was in very good position to be sold in terms of revenue, growth, and all.
[00:04:36.400 --> 00:04:43.760] And we didn't want to wait for the growth to slow or to even decrease before selling it.
[00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:57.360] We also had, you know, you change between, I mean, you change during all your life, but between 25 and 32, 33, you change, your priority change, you start to settle, to build a family.
[00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:05.920] And so, yeah, all of this combined, we thought it was a good time to sell it and to start the process.
[00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:07.360] Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:08.720] You might be quoting me.
[00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:18.000] So I have this quote that I've said several times: where funded companies fail when they run out of money and bootstrapped companies fail when the founders run out of motivation.
[00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:18.320] Yeah.
[00:05:18.640 --> 00:05:19.760] I think that might be it.
[00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:20.080] Yeah.
[00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:24.960] Yeah, I tweeted that and I've said it on the show before because that's usually what happens, especially if you're bootstrapping.
[00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:25.920] Like, why would you stop?
[00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:32.920] But, you know, if you do plateau or you've done it for 10 years, I mean, I've started feeling that same thing with, frankly, with Drewp.
[00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:37.240] And at one point with MicroConf, although I'm now I have renewed energy around MicroConf and Tiny Seed.
[00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:41.080] But yeah, so I think that makes a lot of sense.
[00:05:41.080 --> 00:05:45.080] Now I want to ask you the big question: the end of the hero's journey.
[00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:49.400] The day the cash hit the bank account, you refresh the bank balance.
[00:05:49.400 --> 00:05:58.440] I bet you and Kevin were in touch and you're just waiting for millions of dollars to go in more money than you've ever seen or probably ever imagined you would have.
[00:05:58.440 --> 00:06:01.400] What would describe that feeling to me?
[00:06:01.400 --> 00:06:03.480] So it was very funny.
[00:06:03.480 --> 00:06:11.640] It was a bit anticlimactic in a sense that the whole closing day was done remotely.
[00:06:11.640 --> 00:06:17.560] So we had lawyers in the US, investors in the US, so Tiny Seed.
[00:06:17.640 --> 00:06:22.680] We had the buyer in Lithuania and us in South France.
[00:06:22.680 --> 00:06:32.520] So you do all those docusign, you have proof of the buyer, send the proof of wire transfer, and then you just wait.
[00:06:32.520 --> 00:06:36.120] So it was for three to four hours.
[00:06:36.120 --> 00:06:43.000] And when I actually received the notification refreshing the bank account, I was just relieved.
[00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.160] Like I didn't want to jump.
[00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:46.680] And actually, I took a nap.
[00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:53.640] I took a, I think, a two-hour, 40-minute nap because I had slept only four hours the night before.
[00:06:53.640 --> 00:07:04.920] And it was very, very stressful those last few hours because you have all those lawyers talking about the last few details of the SPA, so the final agreement.
[00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:07.960] So it was a lot of relief, actually.
[00:07:08.280 --> 00:07:19.760] Then you have to start announcing stuff to the team, although they knew we were getting acquired, but you know, you're making it official, you're introduced to the acquirer Slack channel.
[00:07:20.080 --> 00:07:25.440] So it was, yeah, a pretty hectic day, a very good one.
[00:07:25.440 --> 00:07:27.760] Yeah, just a lot of relief.
[00:07:27.760 --> 00:07:34.160] I remember afterwards, after my day was over, I just took a one-hour walk.
[00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:42.560] I called my parents and my grandfather to tell them that it's over, it's been sold, and this time it worked.
[00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:47.520] Yeah, that was anticlimactic, but a beautiful day for me.
[00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:52.400] And did you send Kevin an emoji of you like flipping dollar bills or anything?
[00:07:52.400 --> 00:07:52.960] Yeah.
[00:07:52.960 --> 00:07:55.040] So for Kevin, actually.
[00:07:55.360 --> 00:08:06.080] So yeah, I can probably share it, but the day we closed, his wife was actually delivering his baby, you know.
[00:08:06.080 --> 00:08:10.960] So it was a very hectic day for him to talk about.
[00:08:10.960 --> 00:08:11.440] Yeah.
[00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:14.480] So it follows the process from afar.
[00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:22.480] Of course, I went to the maternity, I dropped some flowers because it was just a few few minutes from home.
[00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:26.880] But yeah, we celebrated through Slack.
[00:08:27.280 --> 00:08:27.920] Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:29.360] We, Slack.
[00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:33.920] Okay, so after you're sold, we're going to get into what Scraping B is and kind of, you know, more of your story.
[00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:39.840] But I know I saw on Twitter at some point that you had bought yourself a bunch of Legos.
[00:08:40.160 --> 00:08:41.440] A bunch of Lego sets.
[00:08:41.680 --> 00:08:46.080] But was that after the exit or was that after hitting 5 million ARRI?
[00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:49.520] Yeah, so it fell after the 5 million ARR.
[00:08:49.520 --> 00:08:56.400] So I, you know, just buying big bucks and just storing them, hoping the value goes up.
[00:08:56.400 --> 00:08:56.800] Yeah.
[00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:06.680] It was funny because I was able to just buy everything I wanted because Lego are expensive, but it's not like cars or jewelry or whatever.
[00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.560] So at the end of the day, it's not that big of a deal.
[00:09:09.560 --> 00:09:12.120] So yeah, so just fun stuff.
[00:09:12.440 --> 00:09:21.320] People talk about like the different levels of wealth where it's like going to fast food, you know, when you're a teenager or frankly growing up, like we just didn't have money.
[00:09:21.320 --> 00:09:24.520] So even fast food, it was like, oh, it was rare we did it, right?
[00:09:24.520 --> 00:09:30.920] But at a certain point, maybe you have $50,000 in a bank, like going to fast food, you don't look at the menu prices anymore, right?
[00:09:30.920 --> 00:09:31.720] You just buy which one.
[00:09:31.880 --> 00:09:35.000] And there's a point where you go to a restaurant and you don't look at the menu prices anymore.
[00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:36.680] And then you go to an expensive restaurant and you don't do it.
[00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:40.760] And then your hotel or your Airbnb, you just stop kind of looking at the price very much.
[00:09:40.760 --> 00:09:48.840] And obviously for some people, maybe it's sports cars or whatever, but getting to the point of Lego being that is pretty good.
[00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:49.320] Pretty good.
[00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:51.720] This is what thank you, H, thank you, HTML.
[00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:52.120] Yeah.
[00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:53.080] Is that what you said?
[00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:53.320] Exactly.
[00:09:53.400 --> 00:09:56.760] Yeah, this was my thank you HTML tweet, basically.
[00:09:57.400 --> 00:09:57.960] Yep.
[00:09:57.960 --> 00:09:58.440] All right.
[00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:00.440] So let's talk about Scraping B.
[00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:04.280] So you're H1, tired of getting blocked while scraping the web.
[00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:12.760] The Scraping B web Scraping API handles headless browsers, rotates proxies for you, and offers AI-powered data extraction.
[00:10:12.760 --> 00:10:19.000] Now, you and Kevin started this, what was it, 2018, 19?
[00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:20.280] 2019.
[00:10:20.280 --> 00:10:21.400] 2019.
[00:10:21.400 --> 00:10:23.480] But this was not your first idea.
[00:10:23.480 --> 00:10:25.960] Like you tried B2C, you tried B2B.
[00:10:25.960 --> 00:10:31.240] In fact, you did a really good Microconf talk on YouTube that we'll link up in the show notes.
[00:10:31.240 --> 00:10:35.400] And you gave it when you guys were about, you were at about 1.5 million ARR at the time.
[00:10:35.400 --> 00:10:39.960] So, if they want to hear about how you found the idea of Scraping B, they can go do that.
[00:10:39.960 --> 00:10:46.640] But having done B2C, B2B, had failures, and then had this outsized success.
[00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:49.200] Is there any, like, what are the, what are the differences?
[00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:53.360] Like, why did Scraping B work when these previous ideas didn't?
[00:10:53.360 --> 00:11:08.480] So, I think the first main reason was I would say funder product fit or funder audience fit in a way that our first serious SAS was a price monitoring tool for e-commerce owners.
[00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:13.120] We were, you know, it was at a time where drop shipping was very hot.
[00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:20.560] We built a tool allowing to monitor prices and all, but we didn't know e-commerce and we didn't know to talk to e-commerce people.
[00:11:20.560 --> 00:11:25.920] We didn't know where those people hanged out on the web, what their problem were.
[00:11:25.920 --> 00:11:31.680] So, we basically built a product waiting for a solution, you know, waiting for a problem.
[00:11:31.680 --> 00:11:37.520] What changed with Scraping B is like with Kevin, we were a developer and we did a lot of web scraping.
[00:11:37.520 --> 00:11:44.800] So, it was a mix of dog footing because we used a product like Scraping B when building pricing bot.
[00:11:44.800 --> 00:11:46.640] And yeah, product audience fit.
[00:11:46.640 --> 00:11:53.680] Like, Kevin had a book and a blog about web scraping in Java, which was quite popular in that niche.
[00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:58.640] You know, afterwards, it sounds very obvious, like, why haven't we started with that?
[00:11:58.640 --> 00:12:07.280] But I think what changed the most, the audience and knowing the people you want to sell it to.
[00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:14.640] Do I remember correctly that you or you and Kevin had authored a book about web scraping?
[00:12:14.640 --> 00:12:16.640] Yeah, he did, about web scraping in Java.
[00:12:16.640 --> 00:12:18.480] Yeah, he had a blog and a book.
[00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:19.600] Yeah, he did.
[00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:23.360] Because that was, I remember when we interviewed you for Tiny Seed, because you were early.
[00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:28.720] You were at like 1K MRR, maybe, which is, which is like right on the edge for us.
[00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:36.520] But A, we really liked you and Kevin, and B, this book, it's like, oh, you wrote a book, you know a bunch about this.
[00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:40.760] And I think you guys had a kind of a small audience in the web scraping space because of that.
[00:12:40.760 --> 00:12:42.040] And we're like, you know what?
[00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:44.840] We're going to take a bet on these guys, you know?
[00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:46.520] And it was part of it, you know?
[00:12:46.520 --> 00:12:52.680] And it's again, you know, if you listen to the show at all, people know I don't put a lot behind having an audience per se, right?
[00:12:52.680 --> 00:12:59.160] To build SaaS, because it's like you can only sell to a very small portion of that and it doesn't actually get you very far.
[00:12:59.160 --> 00:13:01.240] But that's not what we weren't betting on the audience.
[00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:16.120] We were betting on the two of you being these smart people who had built this, had launched it, had some kind of wounds under your belt in terms of having some failures and had written a book and had gotten it out there.
[00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:24.280] And then my memory was even after, I have some notes here from producer Ron that after a year, after the Tiny Seed year, you were only at about 8K MRR.
[00:13:24.280 --> 00:13:28.600] But then 15 months after that, you were at a million ARR.
[00:13:28.920 --> 00:13:32.600] So do you remember what changed in that?
[00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:35.800] Yeah, because that's a striking difference.
[00:13:35.800 --> 00:13:36.840] Definitely.
[00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:50.200] So what I remember is that for the first few months of Scraping B, so we tried to leverage Kevin audience, but as you said, it was not such a big audience.
[00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:56.520] And here, knowledge of the space was more valuable than having an audience.
[00:13:56.520 --> 00:14:05.160] But it was very, you know, things that on scale, we were hanging out on forums, Reddit, and stuff like that.
[00:14:05.160 --> 00:14:13.720] And then, what really changed during the year, we grew very fast, is that we started writing a lot more content.
[00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:22.640] So, first eight months, we spent a lot of time writing some very good content, but the output was quite small because it was only Kevin and I.
[00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:40.560] And then, so, thanks to Tiny C Money, of course, and also to a few advice that made us focus on what works, we just decided to go all in on SEO, and that's what we did, and what really fueled that growth.
[00:14:40.560 --> 00:14:46.320] Then, of course, we're doing tons of product optimization, onboarding, and stuff.
[00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:55.360] But at the end of the day, what really mattered the most was the SEO, and it was thanks to Kevin because he basically split roles.
[00:14:55.360 --> 00:15:02.480] So, we're bus developers, but at some point, we're like, okay, Kevin, you're going to do marketing, I'm going to do product and tech.
[00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:04.560] And Kevin wanted to do that.
[00:15:04.560 --> 00:15:07.440] And so, I remember it was during COVID.
[00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:17.520] And so, he watched the AHRF course, blogging for businesses, which they have just made free during COVID.
[00:15:17.520 --> 00:15:28.000] And yeah, from there, it was just non-stop finding content writer, publishing good content, listening to Ruben Games' advices a lot.
[00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:29.440] He helped us a lot.
[00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:31.840] I know he helped Kevin a lot.
[00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:35.120] And yeah, that was the main point.
[00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:36.480] I remember that now.
[00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:46.560] And I do remember, you know, folks who listen to the podcast will know Ruben is my go-to for freemium, for SEO, for content, for hot takes on AI and such.
[00:15:46.560 --> 00:16:09.400] And that was a good part of, I think, for you guys being part of Tiny Seed is that Ruben is in batch two from 2020, I think, and is very generous, especially with Tiny Seed Founders, about his detailed knowledge, because he knows that you're not going to, you know, he's not going to go on Twitter and write out everything that he does, right, or share it with a random person, but he is willing to kind of give up the real details, right, of how it's really done.
[00:16:09.400 --> 00:16:11.000] Yeah, no, it was awesome.
[00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:11.960] As are you guys now?
[00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:12.360] It's great.
[00:16:12.520 --> 00:16:19.480] You know, when I have someone who I see content, a Tiny Sea founder, who content or SEO is working for, I'm like, all right, talk to Kevin and Pierre, talk to Ruben.
[00:16:19.480 --> 00:16:20.200] There's a few others.
[00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:26.520] You know, there's content obviously is a very powerful force for bootstrappers because it scales so well.
[00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:27.720] And that's something that you guys did.
[00:16:27.720 --> 00:16:33.560] I want to call out is like when you and Kevin were writing everything, it was a little slow going, right?
[00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:35.000] Because you can only produce so much.
[00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:48.280] But you figured out how to do something that a lot of folks don't, which is how do I hire writers and or editors who can kind of produce a content machine rather than just the founders doing it.
[00:16:48.280 --> 00:16:50.760] And it's easy to do that poorly.
[00:16:50.760 --> 00:16:53.240] It's easy to hire people that turn out articles.
[00:16:53.240 --> 00:16:55.640] I've done that myself in the past.
[00:16:55.640 --> 00:17:13.800] So what was that process like to build that engine, that content engine that, because we as founders, like especially folks who are like yourself, who are really good on social media, who are really clever and who have a lot of hot takes that are interesting and get people thinking and talking, our standard for this type of stuff is really high.
[00:17:13.800 --> 00:17:20.600] Like you're not going to publish an article about web scraping using Node or JavaScript or whatever that doesn't meet your standard.
[00:17:20.600 --> 00:17:22.760] And that standard is a nine and a half out of 10, right?
[00:17:22.760 --> 00:17:26.120] So how did you possibly build that engine?
[00:17:26.120 --> 00:17:32.120] So first thing is that, so our audience were a developer and we wanted to build, you know, skyscraper techniques.
[00:17:32.200 --> 00:17:37.080] So the big possible stuff you can write, educational content.
[00:17:37.080 --> 00:17:44.680] And so, first, we started looking for developers who wanted to write and not for writers who knew a bit how to code.
[00:17:44.880 --> 00:18:00.080] So, with that in mind, we were able to have writers who were really in terms of technology, like technologically very top-notch, you know, they knew everything there is to know about their language framework or whatever.
[00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:06.400] Then, and I think I'm pretty sure it was Kevin's ID, we hired an editor.
[00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:13.040] So, basically, this one was a writer who knew a bit about web scraping, but doesn't matter.
[00:18:13.040 --> 00:18:23.680] And his role, and I think he's still working with us to this day, was to review every single piece of content and making them more enjoyable.
[00:18:23.680 --> 00:18:30.960] You know, sometimes a writer will not be English speaking, you know, English will not be first language and all.
[00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:41.280] So, really focusing on developers who want to write, then have an editor review everything, then have a bit of SEO knowledge to optimize it.
[00:18:41.280 --> 00:18:44.560] And you just keep going, keep going, keep going.
[00:18:44.560 --> 00:19:03.280] And so, we were not publishing a lot of content, you know, only three to four blog posts per month, I think, which is way less than what some companies are able to do, but it was sufficient to be, yeah, at some point, I think we were the second biggest web scraping blog on the internet.
[00:19:03.280 --> 00:19:05.040] So, that worked.
[00:19:05.040 --> 00:19:07.120] The articles were long, was my memory.
[00:19:07.120 --> 00:19:08.160] Is that right?
[00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:10.800] Like 4,000 words, 3,000?
[00:19:11.120 --> 00:19:15.760] Yeah, so I think 20 minutes reading time, so that's about that.
[00:19:15.760 --> 00:19:21.520] And we did one for, you know, once you have something that works for Python, you can do all the language.
[00:19:21.520 --> 00:19:25.840] Once you've done the language, you can do the framework and some library.
[00:19:25.840 --> 00:19:30.840] So, it's like really easy to duplicate content ID.
[00:19:29.840 --> 00:19:35.000] Issue started when everyone started doing the same.
[00:19:35.320 --> 00:19:44.520] So, because you know, SEO is a zero-sum game, there is only one Google page, page rank zero.
[00:19:44.680 --> 00:19:46.280] So, we had to diversify.
[00:19:46.280 --> 00:19:50.680] But for the first two years, yeah, that worked very, very well.
[00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:59.240] What's interesting is that there's a good chunk of tiny seed companies that take the money and they say, you know, the money is great, but I didn't actually need it.
[00:19:59.240 --> 00:20:01.960] What I really wanted was the community, the mentorship, the advice.
[00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:04.920] But it sounds like the money actually did make a difference for you guys.
[00:20:04.920 --> 00:20:08.840] It made a mental difference because it was during COVID.
[00:20:08.840 --> 00:20:12.680] We had only, I don't know, 15k in the bank when we received it.
[00:20:12.680 --> 00:20:17.720] We were lucky enough because growth meant we haven't actually touched it.
[00:20:17.720 --> 00:20:23.240] But if we hadn't received the money, we wouldn't have spent it.
[00:20:23.240 --> 00:20:36.920] You know, I don't know if I'm clear, but it's like you know, it gave us mental safety and reassurance that, yeah, we can spend a bit more, that we can pay ourselves finally a decent amount of money.
[00:20:36.920 --> 00:20:40.840] So, yeah, money helped a bit to give mental clarity.
[00:20:40.840 --> 00:20:45.000] And yeah, support and mentoring helped the most.
[00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:46.920] Basically, we had access.
[00:20:46.920 --> 00:20:53.400] So, again, it was COVID lockdown, we were in a countryside, France, with Kevin.
[00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:58.520] So, not the perfect place and time to talk with people who built SAS.
[00:20:58.520 --> 00:21:05.000] And in the Slack, we had access to experts in everything: SEO pricing, copywriting.
[00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:19.760] I remember Jana Pach helped a lot there, ANR for pricing, and many other people who just gave us free 30 minutes, one hour consulting call, and it was very, very helpful.
[00:21:20.080 --> 00:21:29.840] Yeah, that's what I was going to ask: was like, what, you know, obviously, you have this great tweet from yesterday, and you said getting funded through Tiny Seed was a game changer for Scraping Bee.
[00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:32.800] We kept the best benefit a bootstrapper can have, optionality.
[00:21:32.800 --> 00:21:39.280] We were never forced to raise more, but we always knew we could if we wanted to, and it gave us enough funding to meaningfully accelerate our growth.
[00:21:39.280 --> 00:21:45.920] But the best part, the advisors, the mentors, the experts that make up the Tiny Seed community were here for us when we needed it most.
[00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:52.640] So today, I guess we're coming full circle as I'm very happy to become an investor in fund three, which makes me, me and AR, I love it.
[00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:55.680] It's such so great to build your own investors.
[00:21:55.680 --> 00:21:57.840] But it sounds like it all made a difference.
[00:21:57.840 --> 00:22:01.120] Like the money made perhaps less of a difference, I guess.
[00:22:01.120 --> 00:22:06.000] But the advisors, the mentors, the experts, and the advice got you there faster, right?
[00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:15.280] See, I believe you would have gotten there eventually, but maybe it would have taken you extra years, or maybe you would have, it would have been slow enough that there would have been other competitors.
[00:22:15.280 --> 00:22:16.400] You know, you don't know, right?
[00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:18.000] You don't know the sliding doors.
[00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:19.280] Yeah, you don't know.
[00:22:19.280 --> 00:22:27.440] We talked about it with Kevin, and I think last year we said, I think TinySeed made us save two years.
[00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:30.240] And at that time, the company was four years old.
[00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:38.720] So it made us grow twice as fast, which is huge, you know, especially when time is your most valuable asset.
[00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:40.160] Yeah, that's really good to hear.
[00:22:40.160 --> 00:22:48.800] That's really good to hear you put a number to it, you know, and it's, I don't know, just makes me happy because that's why we do it, you know, is to help people, people get there faster.
[00:22:48.800 --> 00:22:53.280] Now, did you, was this pretty steady growth once you started that trajectory with the Content SEO?
[00:22:53.280 --> 00:22:54.720] Did you have any very steady?
[00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:56.880] Yeah, you didn't have any plateaus, right?
[00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:59.480] We have early signs of plateau.
[00:22:59.280 --> 00:23:09.480] So, so because in SAS, you know, if you analyze churn, and basically, when your growth is not growing, you're going to get a plateau because of churn.
[00:23:09.480 --> 00:23:23.640] So, we had a plateau coming in, and at that time, we made some, yeah, meaningful updates to the product and to pricing because you know, we were commodity product.
[00:23:23.640 --> 00:23:35.000] And we bought the idea that you shouldn't care about your competitors' prices and all, but I think it's just I mean, for us, it was completely wrong.
[00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.560] I mean, you cannot just ignore it, especially in our market.
[00:23:39.880 --> 00:23:49.240] We're yeah, commodity products, so you need to be you need to have a sexy pricing table if you want people to at least give you a chance.
[00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:52.760] So, let's talk about the sale process, the exit.
[00:23:52.760 --> 00:23:56.680] You and Kevin got together and decided it was time to sell.
[00:23:56.680 --> 00:24:00.440] Was there, I want to ask you, like, how did you decide it was time to sell?
[00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:05.800] I guess is the first thing, and then talk a little bit about how it actually went down.
[00:24:06.120 --> 00:24:23.160] So, actually, if we're talking about the early start of the process, it was 18 months ago when we sat down with Kevin, we saw revenue, growth, churn, margin, business was in good state, we were a bit exhausted.
[00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:29.640] So, we started a full process with Discretion Capital, our MA advisor.
[00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:40.520] We went through the process of building a pitch, you know, selling a story to potential acquirer and doing some interviews and then getting some offer.
[00:24:40.520 --> 00:24:49.680] And then we just received, we received a big frightening season disease from one of the five biggest tech companies in the world.
[00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:53.360] Of course, everyone got frightened about it.
[00:24:53.360 --> 00:24:56.480] We had to abort the sales process.
[00:24:56.480 --> 00:24:59.520] We were like, okay, it's not going to happen this year.
[00:24:59.520 --> 00:25:01.120] We want to try again in a year.
[00:25:01.120 --> 00:25:05.040] What can we do to make the process smoother next year?
[00:25:05.040 --> 00:25:08.960] So actually, it was a year-long process.
[00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:22.880] So two big things we did was to hire more to standardize operation, document a bit everything, and to have all the accounting stuff ready, you know, in GAP format.
[00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:27.920] We're a French company, so it was a bit of work for us, but very helpful.
[00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:36.000] And so fast forward a year, we're in August with Kevin, and it's like, okay, I want to start again to sell the business.
[00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:37.680] Number were still good.
[00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:41.280] We talked with Zenar, was like, okay, let's do it again.
[00:25:41.280 --> 00:25:49.200] And so obviously that time it was a bit faster because the whole pitch was ready, the accounting stuff were all there.
[00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:59.520] And yeah, so the way it works is like you prepare a pitch, you prepare some name you want your advisor to reach out to, then the advisor.
[00:25:59.520 --> 00:26:01.440] So here it is Creation Capital.
[00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:04.960] You know, they're just there, were our salesmen.
[00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:11.680] So basically talking to all those people, being like, okay, Scraping B want to sell, are you interested in it?
[00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:13.280] You can sign this NDA.
[00:26:13.280 --> 00:26:15.360] Here are all those numbers.
[00:26:15.360 --> 00:26:18.880] They filter out answer use buyers.
[00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:22.720] Then you start to book some interviews with them.
[00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:27.920] So, you know, people want to know the team, ask questions such as, why are you selling?
[00:26:27.920 --> 00:26:32.840] Where do you see web scraping industry coming forward in the next few years?
[00:26:32.840 --> 00:26:33.960] How much do you want?
[00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:37.160] For how much do you sell the business from?
[00:26:37.480 --> 00:26:40.920] And we're Enr or Scott who answers every time.
[00:26:40.920 --> 00:26:44.920] We're not in the valuation business, so we don't give valuation advice.
[00:26:44.920 --> 00:26:49.960] And so we just let the buyer give the first offer.
[00:26:49.960 --> 00:26:54.840] And then you get the LOI, you ship around a bit, try to negotiate.
[00:26:54.840 --> 00:26:57.400] And then you sign the first LOI.
[00:26:57.400 --> 00:27:06.600] So between first speech and signing of LOI, I think it took three to four months and then starts the due diligence.
[00:27:07.480 --> 00:27:10.440] Now, did you get multiple offers?
[00:27:11.080 --> 00:27:14.280] Yeah, we got three multiple offers.
[00:27:14.280 --> 00:27:21.960] So two that you could consider strategic ones and one from a private equity fund.
[00:27:21.960 --> 00:27:30.680] What was interesting is that the private equity fund offer was very seducing for a private equity fund.
[00:27:30.680 --> 00:27:34.200] You know, usually their multiple are much lower.
[00:27:34.200 --> 00:27:43.480] But we ended up working with Oxylabs group because we really wanted to sell to someone who knew the industry.
[00:27:43.480 --> 00:27:46.440] Because web scraping is very particular.
[00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:49.320] There is some legal risk when you're doing web scraping.
[00:27:49.320 --> 00:27:52.120] Lots of companies are not happy that you're doing it.
[00:27:52.120 --> 00:27:56.600] And so we didn't want to relieve what happened to us one year prior.
[00:27:56.600 --> 00:28:05.480] And so selling to the biggest actor in this industry obviously, smoothened out the risk because he knows about everything.
[00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:09.080] He had the same struggles as we used to add.
[00:28:09.080 --> 00:28:14.800] And he wanted to really acquire the company to make it grow bigger and better.
[00:28:14.360 --> 00:28:17.920] So this was very what seduced us.
[00:28:18.080 --> 00:28:23.520] And it was also a full cash offer, which was the best for us.
[00:28:23.520 --> 00:28:24.880] Yeah, which makes total sense.
[00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:28.880] So that's, yeah, it's ANR Volsette, who many folks who listen to this podcast know.
[00:28:29.280 --> 00:28:39.120] He comes on for Hot Take Tuesdays, and my co-founder with Tiny Seed, discretioncapital.com, if folks are between, if you're between about 2 and 20 million ARR, they only do the sell-side MA.
[00:28:39.120 --> 00:28:41.040] So they're always on the founder side.
[00:28:41.040 --> 00:28:44.080] And I know you had a great, great experience with them.
[00:28:44.080 --> 00:28:45.200] Yeah, definitely.
[00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:53.280] I don't want to gloss over the cease and desist that you received because the first time you receive a cease and desist, it feels like it's going to be the end of the world.
[00:28:53.280 --> 00:29:00.480] And what I tell Tiny Seed founders, because I believe we talked about it, but it's like across 200 and how many do we have now?
[00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:05.120] 212 investments, 204 investments, I think, just through Tiny Seed.
[00:29:05.120 --> 00:29:11.200] We see a cease and desist at least once a quarter, sometimes every two months, just because it's a law of large numbers.
[00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:19.600] Now, we also see co-founders implode about once a quarter, and we see, you know, an app get hacked once a year, maybe, you know, and it's again, it's just large numbers.
[00:29:19.600 --> 00:29:24.720] So for us, while we know it's scary, it is usually not business ending.
[00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:27.920] Now, that's not to say it can't be, but it usually isn't.
[00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:33.600] Usually there's a way around it, whether you change what you're doing or whether they just leave you alone or whatever.
[00:29:33.600 --> 00:29:39.600] So I know you can't go into extreme detail about exactly what happened, but did that just kind of go away?
[00:29:39.600 --> 00:29:42.000] Did you respond to it at all?
[00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:42.560] Yeah.
[00:29:42.560 --> 00:29:49.120] So, you know, we received, it was a big season disease and dislike really a business freighting one.
[00:29:49.120 --> 00:29:56.160] Like they were asking for full code base, full customer base, full revenue made, scraping their website.
[00:29:56.160 --> 00:29:59.640] They wanted us to stop scraping their property.
[00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:02.040] And, you know, it can go very far.
[00:30:02.200 --> 00:30:08.440] Like, the worst case scenario was really us in jail and the company closed.
[00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:11.960] So that was a bit frightening.
[00:30:11.960 --> 00:30:21.560] But what happened is that first we were advised by very good lawyers who drafted very good answer.
[00:30:21.560 --> 00:30:30.120] But the most critical part that they sent those kind of season disease to all the web scraping companies in the world.
[00:30:30.120 --> 00:30:35.720] And one of them, one of the biggest web scraping companies, won against them.
[00:30:35.720 --> 00:30:37.800] And it was very public.
[00:30:37.800 --> 00:30:43.720] So they no longer had a case with us because we would just say, look, what you're reproaching us.
[00:30:43.960 --> 00:30:44.600] Case law.
[00:30:44.600 --> 00:30:44.840] Yeah.
[00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:48.200] You know, so this is what saved us.
[00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:51.400] And not saved us, but what closed the issue.
[00:30:51.400 --> 00:30:52.680] We had plan B.
[00:30:52.680 --> 00:30:56.040] We could have always stopped scraping this website.
[00:30:56.040 --> 00:30:59.560] We would have lost, I don't know, 10-15% revenue.
[00:30:59.560 --> 00:31:02.360] But that was what happened.
[00:31:02.360 --> 00:31:11.320] So it took six months for it to settle completely, but it settled by them no longer answering to us.
[00:31:11.640 --> 00:31:13.480] So it died.
[00:31:13.800 --> 00:31:14.520] It died.
[00:31:14.760 --> 00:31:15.720] As they usually do.
[00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:20.840] They either kind of settle, as you said, you need your plan A, B, C, D, and E.
[00:31:20.840 --> 00:31:24.120] Plan A is we just tell them to go F themselves and then they back off, right?
[00:31:24.120 --> 00:31:27.560] Plan B is we send them some documentation and we maybe adjust our approach.
[00:31:27.560 --> 00:31:31.080] And plan C is we just stop scraping the site and we lose 10 to 15 percent.
[00:31:31.320 --> 00:31:33.480] You know, that's like the worst, the worst case almost.
[00:31:33.800 --> 00:31:35.000] Not the worst case, as you said.
[00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:37.360] The worst case, you wind up in jail, but that's just so.
[00:31:37.360 --> 00:31:38.760] They don't actually want that.
[00:31:38.760 --> 00:31:39.960] They don't actually want that.
[00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:46.240] No, but it was the worst case, like just a drafting anti-piracy act in the U.S.
[00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:48.320] and it California law.
[00:31:48.320 --> 00:31:50.400] And it's scare tactics.
[00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:51.680] Yeah, it's scared tactics.
[00:31:51.760 --> 00:31:52.320] Yeah.
[00:31:52.640 --> 00:32:01.680] So then, due diligence, let's walk through this part because this is the part where you know you talk due diligence and you have you had a more painful time of your life?
[00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:03.280] Like, how was due diligence for you?
[00:32:03.280 --> 00:32:04.000] Were you stressed?
[00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:06.800] Was it as awful as I often make it out on this show?
[00:32:06.800 --> 00:32:21.600] Yeah, so it was funny because I remember the day we signed the LY, so the day the due diligence started, you sent me a PDF or your of your exit book, which I've read during my flight back from Phoenix.
[00:32:21.600 --> 00:32:23.040] Because this was before it was published.
[00:32:23.040 --> 00:32:24.240] This was several months before.
[00:32:24.640 --> 00:32:26.640] Yeah, it was very helpful.
[00:32:26.640 --> 00:32:30.880] And yeah, I've read about this due diligence part, how awful it is.
[00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:36.400] So it was bad, but two things made it easier for us.
[00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:37.840] I think three things.
[00:32:37.840 --> 00:32:39.840] So first, I had a co-founder.
[00:32:39.840 --> 00:32:49.440] And so, honestly, without Kevin, it would have been much harder, especially because Kevin is much calmer than I am.
[00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:52.800] We had lots of accounting issues during due diligence.
[00:32:52.800 --> 00:32:58.240] No big deal, but you know, it was French accounting and also lots of questions regarding this.
[00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:01.200] And so Kevin worked on it very well.
[00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:04.320] It really made due diligence lighter.
[00:33:04.320 --> 00:33:08.720] Secondly, we were prepared because we've read a lot about it.
[00:33:08.720 --> 00:33:12.160] Your book, blog post, Discretion Capital.
[00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:14.160] We had some documents ready.
[00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:31.080] And third, the acquirer was really not friendly, but cooperative, you know, like not trying to find the slightest default to try to retrade or not trying to to nitpick the smallest detail, trying to to give a lot of pressure.
[00:33:31.240 --> 00:33:44.920] I mean, it was serious business, it was important stuff, it needed to be done, but we never felt we were working with someone who didn't want to welcome us very soon.
[00:33:44.920 --> 00:33:53.000] So, those three things made it very stressful, but probably not as bad as some founder had it.
[00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:55.320] Yeah, and how long was Didi?
[00:33:55.640 --> 00:33:59.400] It was quite long because of those accounting stuff.
[00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:07.880] So, the way it worked, basically, we had an audit cabinet, just redoing our four years of accounting from the ground up.
[00:34:07.880 --> 00:34:10.520] So, so, so it lasted, I think, three months.
[00:34:10.520 --> 00:34:11.000] Three months.
[00:34:11.080 --> 00:34:11.800] Oh, that's long.
[00:34:11.800 --> 00:34:12.040] Yeah.
[00:34:12.040 --> 00:34:12.440] Yeah.
[00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:18.600] It's long and stressful because you just every day you wake up and you want, A, you don't sleep well, and B, you then wake up tired.
[00:34:18.600 --> 00:34:22.920] And every day, I remember I'm thinking, is this the day it all just goes sideways?
[00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:24.200] Is this the day they back out?
[00:34:24.200 --> 00:34:25.480] Is this the day they find something?
[00:34:25.480 --> 00:34:26.840] Is this the day we screw something up?
[00:34:26.840 --> 00:34:31.640] Is this the day that even is this the day that the stock market drops by 30, 40 percent?
[00:34:31.640 --> 00:34:34.920] You know, any Black Swan event can happen.
[00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:35.320] Yeah.
[00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:37.960] A terrorist attack, like God forbid, just anything can happen.
[00:34:37.960 --> 00:34:40.360] And suddenly, these deals don't go through.
[00:34:40.360 --> 00:34:43.080] And so you're like, I want this to go as fast as possible.
[00:34:43.080 --> 00:34:44.040] Did you feel that as well?
[00:34:44.040 --> 00:34:45.400] Because I felt that the entire time.
[00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:47.400] Yeah, I was very afraid of that.
[00:34:47.400 --> 00:34:51.240] So very afraid of receiving another season disease.
[00:34:51.240 --> 00:35:01.400] So although Oxylabs was weeping company, like I remember every letter we received during those three months, I was scared to open it.
[00:35:01.400 --> 00:35:04.440] Like, is it the IRS asking for an audit?
[00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:09.880] Is it, I don't know, a big tech company sending season disease?
[00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:15.120] So this was very frightening, especially because we had it happen.
[00:35:14.600 --> 00:35:17.360] So we almost sold the business two times.
[00:35:17.680 --> 00:35:24.880] So one time season diseased, but the time before, we were two weeks before closing the business.
[00:35:24.880 --> 00:35:30.080] And we actually received an email from the acquirer telling us, hey, we need to talk.
[00:35:30.080 --> 00:35:33.280] And boom, they no longer wanted to twice the business.
[00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:37.040] So yeah, Black Swan event was what frightened me the most.
[00:35:37.040 --> 00:35:42.080] I wasn't scared about everything else because we had no, we were not hiding anything.
[00:35:42.080 --> 00:35:48.960] It was a small team, clean cut base, no big trouble with customers and all, and growing stuff.
[00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:51.840] But yeah, Black Swan, scary.
[00:35:52.160 --> 00:35:58.720] So then you close, and we can smash cut back to the beginning of this episode when I said, you know, how did it feel when money hit the bank account?
[00:35:58.720 --> 00:36:03.040] And you had already, but you'd already bought the Lego sets when you hit 5 million.
[00:36:03.040 --> 00:36:07.520] Did you buy any crazy or cool things after the exit?
[00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:17.360] So what we did, we went to Paris with my girlfriend of 10 years and we went to a very nice hotel.
[00:36:17.360 --> 00:36:29.760] So this was, I think, our celebration gift to ourselves because it was also stressful for her and she was very, you know, helpful during this period.
[00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:34.240] So I think this was the biggest treat we gave to ourselves.
[00:36:34.240 --> 00:36:38.720] I was able to invite my father to MicroConf in New Orleans.
[00:36:38.720 --> 00:36:40.400] So he was with me.
[00:36:40.400 --> 00:36:44.240] So I took, yeah, it was a nice holiday with him.
[00:36:44.240 --> 00:36:51.760] And yeah, small gift to family, but no big, massive spending.
[00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:55.400] Aside from the three Lamborghinis that now sit out in the sun, yeah, outside of your fell.
[00:36:56.200 --> 00:36:58.720] Obviously, yeah, we obviously.
[00:36:58.720 --> 00:37:01.320] Well, man, huge congrats to you and Kevin.
[00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:02.520] Like, it's really well deserved.
[00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:03.640] You guys executed very well.
[00:37:03.800 --> 00:37:12.440] You worked hard and you worked on things that mattered and you shipped a lot quickly, and you were generally right about most of the stuff you were doing.
[00:37:12.440 --> 00:37:20.120] And so, I think you're kind of a shining example of someone who can bootstrap or mostly bootstrap to millions in ARR.
[00:37:20.120 --> 00:37:22.280] And you know, I would have every confidence.
[00:37:22.280 --> 00:37:33.400] I guess this leads to my next question: is like, have you ever thought to yourself, and you can say, Rob, too soon, too soon, don't ask me this, but have you thought to yourself whether you want to do it again at some point?
[00:37:33.400 --> 00:37:37.240] Because I believe you're still working for the acquirer right now, right?
[00:37:37.240 --> 00:37:41.320] Yeah, and so you know, that'll happen for however long it happens.
[00:37:41.320 --> 00:37:46.360] But when you move on, you have your freedom, you have enough money in the bank that you never have to work again.
[00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:50.120] You know, have you given any thought to what might be next for you?
[00:37:50.120 --> 00:37:50.840] A lot.
[00:37:50.840 --> 00:37:56.840] So, yeah, for now, I'm still working at Scraping B until at least early 2026.
[00:37:56.840 --> 00:37:59.640] And for what comes after, I think about it a lot.
[00:37:59.640 --> 00:38:01.800] We talked about it a lot with Kevin.
[00:38:01.800 --> 00:38:06.280] We don't know if it's going to be together or not, but we have lots of ideas.
[00:38:06.280 --> 00:38:25.080] I don't know if I want to do it again from scratch because those first few years are very, very slow, and I'm not in a position where I want to relieve that, you know, because grinding for a year and then after a year only reaching 6k MRR, like it's rough.
[00:38:25.320 --> 00:38:26.040] Pretty bad.
[00:38:26.040 --> 00:38:26.440] Yeah.
[00:38:26.440 --> 00:38:26.920] Yeah.
[00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:31.800] It's and it's hard the second time because you want it to be faster and you're like, you don't want to put in the pain.
[00:38:32.040 --> 00:38:39.720] The motivation, because the first time it's like, well, you know, I'm doing it to create an impact and to learn and to get rich so that I never have to work again.
[00:38:39.720 --> 00:38:42.600] The second time, it's like, how much am I learning this time?
[00:38:42.600 --> 00:38:43.720] I don't need to get rich.
[00:38:43.720 --> 00:38:44.280] I already have.
[00:38:44.280 --> 00:38:45.840] Like, it's like, oh, real.
[00:38:44.840 --> 00:38:47.440] It calls into question a lot of things.
[00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:53.440] But what I think I would like to do is to start early on with a small team.
[00:38:53.440 --> 00:39:03.440] You know, it doesn't have to be big, maybe three, four people, you know, to really put up something live real quick to try to fail faster, maybe.
[00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:14.000] But so I definitely want to start something again at some point, but it's probably not going to be the way we did Scraping B because we want to save time.
[00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:15.280] And you don't have to this time.
[00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:16.160] You have resources.
[00:39:16.160 --> 00:39:17.760] You could acquire something.
[00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:21.920] You couldn't we talk a lot about also.
[00:39:21.920 --> 00:39:22.720] Yep.
[00:39:22.720 --> 00:39:28.960] So, Pierre de Wolf, there's so much more to your story, but I'm going to bid you adieu today.
[00:39:29.120 --> 00:39:32.080] Folks want to follow you on X Twitter.
[00:39:32.080 --> 00:39:34.160] You are PierreDayWolf.
[00:39:34.160 --> 00:39:41.760] It's D-E-W-U-L-F, where you are a prolific and thought-provoking Twitterer.
[00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:43.120] So thanks so much for joining me.
[00:39:43.120 --> 00:39:44.640] Is there anything else you'd like folks to check out?
[00:39:44.640 --> 00:39:48.320] Like, do you have a personal blog or a YouTube channel I don't know about?
[00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:49.600] No personal blog.
[00:39:49.600 --> 00:40:00.560] I've started posting on LinkedIn a bit more, which was definitely a different audience, but you meet a lot of interesting folks there too.
[00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:03.360] So yeah, for now, that's it.
[00:40:03.360 --> 00:40:04.640] LinkedIn and XTwitter.
[00:40:04.640 --> 00:40:05.440] Well, thanks again, man.
[00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:07.120] It was great having you on to tell your story.
[00:40:07.120 --> 00:40:08.480] Thank you, Rob.
[00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:10.720] Thanks again to Pierre for coming on the show.
[00:40:10.720 --> 00:40:13.600] And thanks to you for listening this week and every week.
[00:40:13.600 --> 00:40:18.000] This is Rob Walling signing off from episode 783.