Robert Balazsi Profile picture
Dad. Tech Lead. Indie Maker. Building @datagrab_io in public. Tweeting about web scraping, SaaS, and Node.js development.
May 14, 2022 β€’ 11 tweets β€’ 3 min read
πŸ’‘ Got a SaaS idea but not sure how to validate it?

The best way is by putting up a pre-order landing page and start charging from day 0.

But how?

Here are 9 tips to nail a pre-order campaign. πŸ‘‡ 1⃣ Be sure you can actually build it

This sounds obvious, but it’s really important.

Create a short proof-of-concept to see if the idea you’re trying to build is actually feasible.

It would be tragic to need to refund all your users because you can’t actually deliver.
Aug 16, 2021 β€’ 11 tweets β€’ 4 min read
I recently got a web scraping side gig. πŸ€–

My job is to scrape groceries' details from two major retailers and scrape their prices on a weekly basis, across several stores.

My stack:
- Node.js
- Axios
- Cheerio
- Puppeteer

Here's what I learned about scraping so far: πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡ 1⃣ API calls can save a huge amount of time

One retailer has an API to query products' prices in batches. This saved me hundreds of requests to listing pages, and ultimately, time.

πŸ’‘ Always look for API calls. Dev Tools (Network tab) is your best friend.
Jun 11, 2021 β€’ 7 tweets β€’ 3 min read
Proxy Guide for Web Scraping πŸ₯·πŸ•·οΈπŸ’‘

You'll learn:

βœ… What are they and why use them
βœ… Types of proxies
βœ… Checklist for using proxies
βœ… Popular proxy providers

πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡ πŸ”· What are proxies and why use them?

Proxy = 3rd-party server that routes your request through them and uses their IP address in the process, hiding yours.

Why use?

βœ… Avoid IP bans
βœ… Bypass rate limits
βœ… Access region-specific content
βœ… Improved security