Buildside Scraper — Indie Founders, Startup Products & Build-in-Public Posts

What does Buildside Scraper do?

Buildside Scraper exports Buildside — the build-in-public network where indie founders share their products, progress, launches and lessons. One run gives you every public founder profile (bio, founder type, phase, expertise, current challenges, city and country, X / LinkedIn / website links, followers, products), every product (pitch, description, category, stage, target audience, website, features, screenshots, AI summary of what it does and the problem it solves, and MRR / revenue when the founder made it public), or every build-in-public post (title, text, type, reactions, comment counts, linked product — optionally with the full comment thread). No login, no browser.

Why use this Actor?

• Warm founder leads: founders who say what they are building, what they are good at and what they struggle with right now (distribution, monetization, activation…) — with their own links to X, LinkedIn and their website.
• Startup product database: hundreds of indie SaaS products with category, stage, website, features and screenshots — and self-reported or Stripe-verified MRR where the founder chose to publish it.
• Build-in-public signal: launches, milestones, experiments and lessons, newest first, with reactions and comments — track what indie founders ship each week.
• Clean, typed rows: every row has every column (null when Buildside has no value), ISO dates, numbers as numbers, text without markup, absolute links to the Buildside pages.
• Privacy first: only profiles their owners made public; revenue only when the founder made it public; no e-mail fields (addresses typed into posts, bios or comments are masked), no privacy settings, no private user ids.

How much does it cost?

You pay per row (one row = one founder, product or post) plus a small start fee. Runs are quick: all ~390 founders take about 2 minutes, all ~340 products about 2 minutes, all posts about 2.5 minutes (about 6 minutes with comments).

Run	Rows
First run with the prefilled form (top 20 founders by followers)	20
Every founder	~390
Every product	~340
Every AI product	~25
Every post	~1,250 (≈1,370 with reposts)
Posts of the last 7 days	~150

Buildside grows by roughly 35 founders and 30 products a week. Use Maximum results and the filters to pay only for what you need. Include comments does not add rows — it adds the comment thread to each post row (the run takes longer).

Input

Field	Description	Example
mode	founders (default), products or posts — one data set per run	founders
maxResults	Stop after this many rows; 0 = everything. The form prefills 20	100
query	Founders / products: Buildside's own search. Posts: every word must appear in the post	ai
expertise	AI, Analytics, Bootstrapping, Community, Design, Engineering, Growth, Marketing, No-code, Pricing, Product, Sales (ANY matches)	["Growth", "Marketing"]
founderTypes	Solo, Small team, Technical, Non-technical, First-time, Repeat, Funded	["Solo"]
statuses	Exploring, Building, Growing, Supporting founders	["Growing"]
verifiedOnly	Only founders with the verified badge	false
minFollowers	Minimum Buildside followers	10
founderSortBy	followers (default) or newest	newest
categories	Product categories (products and posts), e.g. ai, developer-tools, marketing-tools, productivity, fintech	["ai"]
stages	Pre-launch, Beta, Growth, Mature	["Growth"]
publicRevenueOnly	Only products that publish a revenue figure above zero	true
productSortBy	newest (default), followers or mrr	mrr
postTypes	Progress, Launch, Milestone, Lesson, Ask, Feedback, Experiment, Opportunity, Challenge, Repost	["Launch", "Milestone"]
postedAfter	Posts from this date on (2026-10-01) or a period (7 days)	7 days
includeReposts	Also export reposts (default off)	false
includeComments	Add each post's comments and replies to its row (default off)	true
includeProducts	Founders mode: add the founder's products to the row (default on)	true

Founder filters (expertise, types, status, verified, minimum followers) also work in posts mode: they pick whose posts you get.

{
    "mode": "posts",
    "postTypes": ["Launch"],
    "postedAfter": "7 days",
    "includeComments": true,
    "maxResults": 0
}

Output

Founder row (founders mode)

{
    "founderId": "a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8",
    "handle": "jane_builds",
    "name": "Jane Example",
    "bio": "Solo founder building tools for indie hackers.",
    "focus": "Finding my first paying user",
    "founderType": "Solo",
    "status": "Growing",
    "expertise": ["Engineering", "AI", "Bootstrapping"],
    "challenges": ["Distribution", "Monetization"],
    "achievements": ["Grew to 130 users in under 2 weeks."],
    "location": "Montreal, Canada",
    "city": "Montreal",
    "country": "Canada",
    "followers": 86,
    "following": 10,
    "productCount": 2,
    "postsPublished": 14,
    "helpfulAnswers": 3,
    "isVerified": false,
    "xUrl": "https://x.com/jane_builds",
    "linkedinUrl": "https://linkedin.com/in/jane-example",
    "websiteUrl": "https://jane.example/",
    "youtubeUrl": null,
    "instagramUrl": null,
    "tiktokUrl": null,
    "latestProductName": "Formly",
    "latestProductUrl": "https://www.buildside.app/products/prd_0123456789abcdef01234567/formly",
    "products": [
        { "productId": "prd_0123456789abcdef01234567", "name": "Formly", "pitch": "Fill startup forms faster", "url": "https://www.buildside.app/products/prd_0123456789abcdef01234567/formly" }
    ],
    "joinedAt": "2026-08-14T06:45:54.346Z",
    "avatarUrl": "https://dhp99089c4nys.cloudfront.net/users/a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8/assets/avatar.webp",
    "profileUrl": "https://www.buildside.app/founders/a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8/jane-builds",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-19T20:26:48.212Z"
}

Product row (products mode)

{
    "productId": "prd_0123456789abcdef01234567",
    "name": "Formly",
    "pitch": "Fill startup forms faster",
    "description": "Formly fills accelerator, grant and directory forms from one founder profile.",
    "category": "Productivity",
    "categorySlug": "productivity",
    "stage": "Growth",
    "status": "Building",
    "targetAudience": "Early-stage founders applying to accelerators and directories.",
    "teamSize": 1,
    "pricingSummary": "Free plan; Pro $9/month",
    "platforms": ["Web"],
    "useCases": [],
    "differentiators": [],
    "websiteUrl": "https://formly.example/",
    "followers": 12,
    "logoUrl": "https://dektn7iueti0p.cloudfront.net/logos/products/prd_0123456789abcdef01234567/logo.webp",
    "screenshots": ["https://dektn7iueti0p.cloudfront.net/screenshots/products/prd_0123456789abcdef01234567/shot_01.webp"],
    "features": ["Saves a founder profile once and fills any supported form from it."],
    "whatItDoes": "Formly stores a founder's company details and fills long application forms automatically.",
    "coreProblem": "Founders retype the same answers into dozens of forms.",
    "whatItSolves": "One profile, filled everywhere, with answers kept consistent.",
    "mrr": 1200,
    "totalRevenue": 5000,
    "users": null,
    "currency": "USD",
    "revenueVisibility": "self-reported",
    "founderId": "a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8",
    "founderName": "Jane Example",
    "founderHandle": "jane_builds",
    "founderProfileUrl": "https://www.buildside.app/founders/a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8/jane-builds",
    "createdAt": "2026-09-17T16:39:13.135Z",
    "updatedAt": "2026-10-02T12:40:23.964Z",
    "url": "https://www.buildside.app/products/prd_0123456789abcdef01234567/formly",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-19T20:26:48.212Z"
}

mrr, totalRevenue and users are filled only when the founder made that figure public (revenueVisibility self-reported or stripe-verified); otherwise they are null and revenueVisibility is private — about 9 in 10 products.

Post row (posts mode)

{
    "postId": "pst_0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef",
    "type": "Launch",
    "title": "Okay, finally I launched it!",
    "bodyText": "Built for product launchers, app builders & indie hackers.\n\nPut your product in front of other builders for 72 hours.",
    "detailsText": null,
    "category": "Marketing tools",
    "progressStatus": null,
    "isAutomated": false,
    "repostOfPostId": null,
    "linkUrl": "https://formly.example/",
    "imageCount": 1,
    "pollOptions": null,
    "publishedAt": "2026-09-01T21:12:01.157Z",
    "reactionCount": 4,
    "commentCount": 2,
    "repostCount": 0,
    "founderId": "a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8",
    "founderHandle": "jane_builds",
    "founderName": "Jane Example",
    "founderProfileUrl": "https://www.buildside.app/founders/a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8/jane-builds",
    "productId": "prd_0123456789abcdef01234567",
    "productName": "Formly",
    "productUrl": "https://www.buildside.app/products/prd_0123456789abcdef01234567/formly",
    "comments": [
        { "authorHandle": "sam_ships", "authorName": "Sam Example", "text": "Congrats on launching!", "createdAt": "2026-09-01T23:12:47.239Z", "isReply": false },
        { "authorHandle": "jane_builds", "authorName": "Jane Example", "text": "Thanks Sam!", "createdAt": "2026-09-02T08:01:10.000Z", "isReply": true }
    ],
    "url": "https://www.buildside.app/posts/pst_0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef/okay-finally-i-launched-it",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-19T20:26:48.212Z"
}

• comments is null unless Include comments is on (then [] for posts without comments). A commenter without a public founder profile appears with a null handle and name.
• isAutomated marks posts Buildside writes on the founder's behalf (for example "… just launched …" when a product is added).
• detailsText holds the type-specific fields of Experiment, Lesson, Feedback, Ask… posts as Label: value lines.
• Posts are delivered newest first across all founders.

Problems (a profile that could not be read, a failed comment thread…) are listed under the ERRORS key of the run's key-value store, free of charge. A founder whose full profile cannot be read is still delivered with the list fields (name, handle, bio, type, status, expertise, followers).

Tips and tricks

• Leads by need: founders mode + expertise / statuses, then filter the challenges column (e.g. "Distribution") for founders who are looking for exactly what you offer.
• New products every week: products mode, productSortBy: newest, a small maxResults, scheduled weekly.
• Revenue-transparent startups: products mode + publicRevenueOnly, productSortBy: mrr.
• Launch tracker: posts mode, postTypes: ["Launch", "Milestone"], postedAfter: "7 days".
• Join the data sets: founderId links founders, products and posts; productId links products and posts.
• The Console offers table views per mode (Founders, Products, Posts) and a CSV export.

Scheduling

For a recurring posts feed, set postedAfter to match the schedule interval (e.g. 7 days for a weekly run). Founders and products modes have no date filter: each run returns the current listing (use founderSortBy / productSortBy: newest with a small maxResults). Rows are unique within a run; drop repeats from earlier runs downstream by founderId, productId or postId.

Integrations

Connect the dataset to Google Sheets, Airtable, HubSpot, Slack or Zapier / Make with Apify integrations, or read it from the API (/v2/datasets/{id}/items?format=json|csv|xlsx).

Privacy

The actor only exports profiles their owners set to public, never e-mail addresses (addresses typed into public texts are masked), phone numbers, messaging or privacy settings, and only the revenue figures founders chose to publish. If you process the founder rows, you are responsible for doing so lawfully (e.g. GDPR legitimate interest and opt-out handling for outreach).