Pierre DeWulf, co-founder of web scraping SaaS ScrapingBee, recounts having to halt their initial sales process eighteen months prior due to a legal threat from Big Tech.
Insight
DeWulf: Hire developers who write, not writers who code
“So first we started looking for developers who wanted to write and not for writers who knew a bit how to code. So with that in mind, we're able to have writers who were really in terms of Technology, like technologically very top notch, you know, they knew eve…”
Insight
DeWulf: Commodity SaaS products cannot ignore competitor pricing to win customers
“I think it's just, I mean, for us, it was completely wrong. I mean, you cannot just ignore it, especially in our market, 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.”
Disclosure
DeWulf: Oxylabs acquired ScrapingBee in an all-cash deal
“So this was very what seduced us, and it was also a full cash offer, which was the best for us.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
DeWulf: Two previous ScrapingBee acquisitions fell through before the final exit
“We almost sold the business two times. So, one time season desist, but the time before, we were two weeks before closing the business, and we actually received an email from the acquirer telling us, hey, we need to talk, and boom, they no longer wanted to rais…”
Disclosure
DeWulf: ScrapingBee sold at peak growth to avoid an eventual slowdown
“Scraping really was in very good position to be sold in terms of revenue, growth, and all, and we didn't want to wait for the growth to slow or to even decrease before selling it.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
DeWulf: ScrapingBee became the web's second-biggest scraping blog with 3-4 posts/month
“And so we're 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 sweepi…”