Hacker News (Show HN) & Product Hunt Startup Founder Leads Scraper

Capture newly launched tech startups, Show HN builders, Product Hunt daily launches, and buyer-intent software threads — automatically crawling startup domains to extract verified founder emails, GitHub repos, and social links.

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High-ROI B2B, Agency & AI Workflows

• Day-Zero Startup Outbound (DevTools, Cloud, Design & Legal/Accounting Agencies): Reach funded and indie founders the exact day they launch on Show HN or Product Hunt while they are actively buying tooling and agency support.
• VC Deal-Flow & Angel Scouting: Stream daily technical launches with Hacker News upvote velocity, comment engagement, GitHub repositories, and founder bios directly into Airtable, Affinity, or Notion.
• Buyer-Intent & Competitor Monitoring: Pass searchQueries ("alternative to", "CRM", "observability") to extract developers asking for software recommendations.
• Zero API Keys or Proxies: Uses lightweight Algolia HN & RSS/HTML hydration with 256MB RAM execution.

Architecture & Cost Advantage (256MB Zero-Proxy Engine)

• Zero Residential Proxy Markup: Engineered with lightweight TLS/session requests so you do not need expensive residential proxy add-ons just to test or scale runs.
• Ultra-Low 256MB Compute Footprint: Runs cleanly inside a 256MB container (16x less platform memory overhead than 4GB headless-browser scrapers) with incremental dataset streaming and graceful timeout protection.
• Pay-Per-Event Transparency: You only pay a tiny startup fee plus each structured dataset result delivered — with automatic volume discounts up to 60%–70% off on Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond Apify plans.

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Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
sources	array	["show_hn", "product_hunt"]	Select platforms to extract startup launches and founder leads from: 'show_hn', 'product_hunt', 'ask_hn', 'hn_search'.
searchQueries	array	[]	Optional keywords to filter or search launches (e.g. ['AI agent', 'SaaS', 'Postgres', 'developer tools']). Leave empty to get the latest Show HN & Product Hunt launches.
maxItemsPerSource	integer	15	Maximum number of startup launches or threads to collect per source/query.
crawlStartupWebsites	boolean	true	Visits each launched product's domain (and /about, /contact) to extract verified founder/team emails, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, GitHub, and Discord links.
onlyWithEmail	boolean	false	Filter output to startup launches where at least one verified email was discovered in the founder profile or startup website.
proxyConfiguration	object	{"useApifyProxy": false}	Optional proxy settings. Works out-of-the-box at 256MB with zero proxies needed.

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Sample Output Dataset Item

{
  "source": "show_hn",
  "launchTitle": "Show HN: VectorPulse \u2013 Open-source real-time eval monitoring for AI agents",
  "discussionUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910000",
  "startupUrl": "https://vectorpulse.dev",
  "startupDomain": "vectorpulse.dev",
  "founderUsername": "mchen_dev",
  "founderBio": "Building developer infrastructure. Previously infra @ Stripe.",
  "points": 142,
  "commentsCount": 58,
  "emails": [
    "founders@vectorpulse.dev",
    "mike@vectorpulse.dev"
  ],
  "githubUrl": "https://github.com/vectorpulse/vectorpulse",
  "twitterUrl": "https://x.com/vectorpulsedev",
  "linkedinUrl": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/vectorpulse",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-30T14:22:10Z"
}

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Use as an AI Agent Tool (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf & MCP)

Every Actor in our suite works out-of-the-box with the Apify Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server so Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, or custom OpenAI/LangGraph agents can invoke church_of_loujess/hackernews-producthunt-leads-scraper directly during a conversation:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-b2b-intelligence": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=church_of_loujess/hackernews-producthunt-leads-scraper",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

API Quickstart (Python, Node.js & cURL)

Python (apify-client)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("church_of_loujess/hackernews-producthunt-leads-scraper").call(run_input={
  "sources": [
    "show_hn",
    "product_hunt"
  ],
  "searchQueries": [],
  "maxItemsPerSource": 10,
  "crawlStartupWebsites": true,
  "onlyWithEmail": false
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Node.js / TypeScript (apify-client)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('church_of_loujess/hackernews-producthunt-leads-scraper').call({
  "sources": [
    "show_hn",
    "product_hunt"
  ],
  "searchQueries": [],
  "maxItemsPerSource": 10,
  "crawlStartupWebsites": true,
  "onlyWithEmail": false
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

n8n, Make.com & Clay Enrichment Setup

1. Clay: Add an Apify — Run Actor enrichment column -> select church_of_loujess/hackernews-producthunt-leads-scraper -> map your row's keyword, handle, or URL -> map returned emails/metrics into downstream cold-email columns (Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist).
2. n8n / Make.com: Trigger on a schedule (daily/weekly) -> call https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/church_of_loujess~hackernews-producthunt-leads-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<TOKEN> -> route verified leads directly to HubSpot, Slack, Google Sheets, or Airtable.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Do I need to configure proxies or cookies?

No. church_of_loujess/hackernews-producthunt-leads-scraper works out-of-the-box with zero cookies, zero login credentials, and zero residential proxies required.

Can I export results to CSV, Excel, JSON, or Parquet?

Yes. Every run writes clean, flattened fields plus rich nested metadata to your default Apify Dataset, supporting one-click export to CSV, XLSX, JSON, JSONL, XML, or RSS as well as direct webhook delivery.

What happens on large batch runs near the timeout limit?

All Actors in our portfolio stream results incrementally (pushData) and monitor APIFY_TIMEOUT_AT so completed leads are preserved cleanly without losing partial progress.

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Explore Our B2B Lead Generation & Social Intelligence Suite

Chain this Actor with our other zero-proxy, 256MB-optimized Apify Actors inside n8n, Make.com, Clay, LangChain, or Claude/Cursor MCP:

Actor	Best For	Store Link
TikTok Search Scraper (Fast)	Keywords, hashtags, spoken transcripts & creator discovery	Open in Apify Store
TikTok Profile & Bio Email Scraper	Bulk @username stats, bio emails, posts & ASR subtitles	Open in Apify Store
TikTok Viral Hook & Outlier Cloner	Exact first-3s spoken hooks, WPM pace & outlier ratios	Open in Apify Store
Linktree & Bio-Link B2B Email Finder	Creator, coach & agency emails, Calendly links & storefronts	Open in Apify Store
Shopify App Reviews & Churn Leads	1-2 star competitor churn reviews -> resolved store emails	Open in Apify Store
Substack Newsletter & Sponsor Finder	Niche newsletter authors, subscriber scale & sponsor emails	Open in Apify Store
Show HN & Product Hunt Founder Leads	Newly launched tech startups, domains & founder emails	Open in Apify Store
GitHub Verified Developer & CTO Leads	Stargazers, contributors & commit-verified B2B emails	Open in Apify Store
Reddit Fast Buyer-Intent Scraper	Subreddits, buyer-intent search & nested comment trees	Open in Apify Store
YouTube Channel Sponsorship Leads	Creator business emails, social handles & external links	Open in Apify Store
Telegram Public Channel Scraper	Crypto, OSINT & community feeds + extracted links/emails	Open in Apify Store
Website Contact Email & Phone Crawler	Bulk domain contact page email, phone & social extraction	Open in Apify Store