# New Product Launch Tracker: Startups Worth Contacting (`precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar`) Actor

Every product launched this week on Show HN, BetaList, Fazier and Uneed, resolved to the company's own website and checked for hiring, press, Shopify and apps, so you can tell a real business from a weekend project. No API key, no login, no proxy.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/precious\_bathmat/launch-lead-radar.md
- **Developed by:** [Mariam Ahmed](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Business
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $4.00 / 1,000 launch listeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## New Product Launch Tracker: Startups Worth Contacting

Find **the products that launched this week** across four launch platforms, resolved to the company's own website, and checked for the signals that separate a real business from a weekend project: who is **hiring**, who is **in the news**, who **sells on Shopify**, who **ships mobile apps**.

No API key, no login, no proxy.

### What does this do?

Every launch platform tells you what launched. None of them tell you which launches are worth your time. A list of 400 products is not a lead list: most of them are one person and a landing page, and the few that are funded companies with thirty open roles look exactly the same on the page.

This Actor reads four launch platforms, works out each product's **real website**, and then checks that company against public sources — the same readings the B2B signals Actor uses.

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    A[Show HN] --> E[One list of launches]
    B[BetaList] --> E
    C[Fazier] --> E
    D[Uneed] --> E
    E --> F[Resolve the product's<br/>own website]
    F --> G[Hiring · Press · Shopify · Apps]
    G --> H[Ranked: who is worth contacting]
```

### Who is it for?

| You are | You use it to |
|---|---|
| **An agency or freelancer** | Reach founders in the week they launch, when they are actually looking for help |
| **A venture investor or scout** | See which launches already have a staffed team behind them, not just upvotes |
| **A sales team selling to startups** | Build a weekly list of companies that just went to market |
| **A journalist or newsletter writer** | Fill "what launched this week" with the ones that have real traction |
| **A founder** | Watch your competition launch, and see who is hiring against you |

### What data do you get?

One row per launch:

| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| `name`, `tagline`, `website` | The product, what it does, and its own address |
| `source`, `alsoOn` | Where it launched, and which other platforms carried it |
| `launchedAt`, `daysAgo` | When |
| `traction`, `comments` | Points or upvotes on its platform |
| `leadScore`, `leadBand`, `evidence` | How much evidence there is of a real company, and exactly what that evidence was |
| `hiringSignal`, `openRoles`, `careersBoard` | Whether they are hiring, and where |
| `pressSignal`, `articlesLast30Days` | Whether anyone has written about them |
| `shopifyStore`, `mobileApps` | Whether they already sell, and on what |
| `whyUnknown` | Every reading that could not be made, in words |

### Example: one week of launches, September 2026

A live run of 24 launches took **29 seconds** and under a cent of platform usage.

| Product | Lead | Why |
|---|---|---|
| **Vizard Agent** (BetaList) | **hot (4)** | **36 open roles** on a public careers board, plus press in the last 30 days |
| **Radius** (Show HN) | worth a look (3) | 4 mobile apps already shipped, 148 points on Show HN |
| **Songflip** (Uneed) | worth a look (2) | 3 articles in the last 30 days |
| **Mailyond** (Fazier) | early (1) | 75 upvotes, nothing else public yet |
| Most of the rest | just launched (0) | No hiring, no press, no store: genuinely new |

Vizard Agent is the row that pays for the run. It launched on an indie launch board next to dozens of side projects, and it is a company with thirty-six open roles — something no upvote count would have told you.

### How the scoring works, and what it refuses to do

- **The bands are calibrated against a real spread, not invented.** On the run above, 20 launches scored 0, 11 scored 1, and one each scored 2, 3 and 4. Nothing reached 5. So "hot" starts at 4, and it stays rare on purpose. A list where everything is hot is worth nothing.
- **A score of 0 is not an insult.** For a product released this week, no hiring and no press is completely normal. It is reported as **just launched**, which is different from *unreadable* — that one means the checks ran and told us nothing.
- **"Unknown" only ever means "we looked and could not tell".** A signal you switched off is reported as empty, never dressed up as a failed reading.
- **A launch called "Radius" does not get credit for the news.** An ordinary word cannot be searched for safely: an early version graded Radius "hot" on 22 articles that were about other things entirely. Names that are ordinary words now have their press left unread, and `whyUnknown` says so.
- **A GitHub or Vercel link is not a company.** The launch is still listed, with its URL, but there is no company domain to check, so it is honestly marked as not qualified rather than scored as if it had failed.
- **Product Hunt is off by default, and the reason is not flattering to us.** It serves its pages only to browser-like addresses, so from a server we can read its feed but never the product's own website — and a row with no website cannot be qualified. Turn it on to see what launched there; do not expect it to be scored.
- **Advertising is off by default** because a product released this week has not started buying traffic: on the calibration run only one launch in 31 was running any ads, while Google rate-limited the server for asking. It is one switch away if you want it.

### What it does not do

It does not name people or find email addresses, and it does not read LinkedIn. Every source here is public output a company chose to publish: its launch post, its careers board, its press, its catalogue, its apps. That limit is what keeps the Actor working without logins, proxies or a data broker's terms of use.

### Popular launch reports

Ready-made runs you can open and start, or copy as a starting point:

- [New Product Launches This Week](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/new-product-launches-this-week)
- [Startups That Just Launched](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/startups-that-just-launched)
- [AI Product Launches](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/ai-product-launches)
- [SaaS Product Launches](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/saas-product-launches)
- [Developer Tool Launches](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/developer-tool-launches)
- [Show HN Launches](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/show-hn-launches)
- [BetaList New Startups](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/betalist-new-startups)
- [Fazier Launches](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/fazier-launches)
- [Uneed Launches](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/uneed-launches)
- [Product Hunt Alternative Launch Boards](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/product-hunt-alternatives)
- [Startups Hiring After Launch](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/startups-hiring-after-launch)
- [Design Tool Launches](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/design-tool-launches)
- [Marketing Tool Launches](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/marketing-tool-launches)
- [Fintech Product Launches](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/fintech-product-launches)
- [Product Launches Today](https://apify.com/precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar/examples/launches-today)

### Pricing

**$0.004 per launch listed** and **$0.02 per launch qualified**. A launch with no company website is only ever charged the first, because only the first was done.

A weekly run over 40 launches costs about **$0.85**. Turn qualification off and the same list costs $0.16.

### Input

| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| **Launch platforms** | Show HN, BetaList, Fazier and Uneed by default; Product Hunt is opt-in, for the reason above |
| **How many days back** | 1 to 30. Show HN and Fazier carry a launch date; BetaList and Uneed show their current front page |
| **Maximum launches** | The cap is shared evenly between the platforms you chose, so a small run still shows all of them |
| **Only launches matching these words** | Keep only launches whose name or tagline mentions, say, `ai`, `crm` or `design` |
| **Minimum upvotes or points** | Skip the quiet ones |
| **Check buying signals** | Turn off for a plain, cheaper list of what launched |
| **Which signals to read** | Hiring, press, Shopify and apps by default; advertising is opt-in |
| **Country** | Which country's news, ads and app store to read |

### Integrations

Runs on a schedule and connects to Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make or your own code through the Apify API. A weekly run over the same platforms turns these snapshots into a feed of companies in their first week of being a company.

# Actor input Schema

## `sources` (type: `array`):

Which launch platforms to read. Product Hunt is off by default: it serves its pages only to browser-like IPs, so from a server we can read its feed but never the product's own website, and those rows cannot be qualified.

## `days` (type: `integer`):

Only include launches from the last N days. Show HN and Fazier carry a launch date; BetaList and Uneed show their current front page.

## `maxLaunches` (type: `integer`):

How many launches to keep, highest traction first. Each one costs $0.004, plus $0.02 if it is qualified.

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Optional. Keep only launches whose name or tagline contains one of these words, for example "ai", "design", "crm".

## `minTraction` (type: `integer`):

Skip launches below this much traction on their platform. 0 keeps everything.

## `qualify` (type: `boolean`):

Look up hiring, Google ads, press, Shopify and apps for each launch. Turn this off for a plain, cheaper list of what launched.

## `signals` (type: `array`):

Fewer signals means a faster, cheaper run. Advertising is off by default because a product launched this week has rarely started buying traffic, and Google rate-limits a server that asks too often.

## `country` (type: `string`):

Which country's Google ads, news and app store to read.

## `adFormatBreakdown` (type: `boolean`):

Off by default. It costs three extra requests per launch and Google starts refusing a server after about a hundred in one run.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "sources": [
    "showHn",
    "betaList",
    "fazier",
    "uneed"
  ],
  "days": 7,
  "maxLaunches": 40,
  "keywords": [],
  "minTraction": 0,
  "qualify": true,
  "signals": [
    "hiring",
    "press",
    "shopify",
    "apps"
  ],
  "country": "US",
  "adFormatBreakdown": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `launches` (type: `string`):

Every launch found, ranked by how much evidence there is that a real company is behind it.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

What each launch platform returned, and how each launch scored.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,precious_bathmat/launch-lead-radar"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/p6mEDn5VChwFrd1wf/builds/Creq8pwXKzvxQe4qr/openapi.json