Adrian Horning’s journey into tech started far from Silicon Valley. He studied psychology at college, but a chance encounter with Uber during an internship opened his eyes to the possibilities of the tech industry.
That spark pushed him to move to San Francisco, enrol in a coding bootcamp, and take a role at Lyft. To keep the bills paid, he worked as a food delivery cyclist.
A move to Utah brought him a software engineering role. After three years, Adrian had saved enough to live for about a year with no income. In 2022, he decided it was time to focus on entrepreneurship full time, supporting himself with freelance projects to extend his runway.
During this period, he experimented with multiple ideas but nothing stuck. The turning point came in June 2024, when he launched Scrape Creators, a real-time social media scraping API.
Finding the idea
Adrian had been building scrapers for years. It was both a technical skill and a genuine interest. Scrape Creators brought together his past work into a single, usable product.
Some of his existing audience had taken his scraping courses. That overlap meant he already had warm leads before launching. The best part? Starting required almost no upfront capital.
By March 2025, the product was covering most of his bills. Twelve months after launch, Scrape Creators had grown past $10k in monthly recurring revenue.
Product and tech stack
Scrape Creators runs on a usage-based pricing model. Customers buy credits and spend them using the API, a model that aligns cost with usage and mirrors the approach of many AI companies.
Tech stack used:
| Tool / Service | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Render | Hosting and deployment |
| AWS Lambda | Serverless compute |
| Supabase | Database and backend services |
| Firebase (Auth) | Authentication |
| Netlify | Frontend hosting |
| React | Frontend framework |
| Astro | Static site generation |
This lean setup allowed Adrian to move fast and keep overhead low.
The focus shift that unlocked growth
The biggest barrier to growth wasn’t technical. It was focus.
Adrian had been splitting his time between multiple projects and freelance clients. That made it impossible to give any single project the attention it needed to scale.
Once he committed fully to Scrape Creators, growth began to compound. The first months were lean, but removing distractions allowed him to iterate on the product and improve it consistently.
Key takeaway:
- Choose one project to focus on.
- Cut out distractions, even if it means turning down income.
- Allow time for compounding results.
Building an audience
Adrian’s customer acquisition wasn’t built on complex funnels or paid ads. Instead, he relied on two main channels:
- Direct messages on X (Twitter) - personalised outreach to potential customers
- Google - organic search, boosted by some programmatic SEO pages and blog content
Because Adrian had been active in the scraping community and had built a personal brand on X, his posts often reached the right people.
Example outreach methods that worked for Adrian:
- Spotting potential customers in his feed and offering 10,000 free credits.
- DM’ing people who had posted about scraping or related problems.
- Sharing examples of scraping work publicly, which sometimes prompted companies to ask about his services.
Customer growth stories
Some of Adrian’s first customers came through unexpected paths:
- A CTO became a paying customer after Adrian tweeted about scraping their site.
- One customer responded to a tweet, Adrian checked their bio, realised they were scraping, and sent them a DM.
- Another was acquired after Adrian scraped his own follower list for potential users and reached out directly.
These wins highlight a key reality for API businesses - a small number of high-value customers can make the business viable.
Advice to new founders
Adrian often shares advice for other indie hackers:
1. Start earlier
“The best business idea is the one you started three years ago.”
It’s not about having the perfect idea. The act of starting and building gives time for compounding effort to work in your favour.
2. Focus on one thing
Jumping between ideas resets progress. The turning point for Adrian came when he committed to a single product.
3. Keep it simple
Avoid overcomplicating the tech stack or growth strategy early on. Focus on getting the product into the hands of the right users.
What’s next for Scrape Creators
Adrian plans to continue growing the API, with a focus on:
- Increasing organic search traffic through more content and pSEO
- Continuing to engage with his audience on X
- Building out features that customers specifically request
- Setting aside profits for long-term stability
For now, the strategy is to keep doing what works: a lean team, direct outreach, and slow, steady improvements to the product.
Founder snapshot
| Founder | Adrian Horning |
|---|---|
| Product | Scrape Creators |
| Launch date | June 2024 |
| Current MRR | $10,000+ |
| Pricing model | Usage-based (credits) |
| Primary channels | X (Twitter), Google |
| Team size | Solo founder |
| Location | USA |
Scrape Creators is a reminder that growth doesn’t need to come from paid ads, huge teams, or viral launches. A clear product, a focused founder, and steady audience engagement can build a profitable business in a niche that many overlook.
