Startup Outreach: From Simple Plan to Data Scraping

What started as a simple outreach plan turned into a big data scraping project.

Reaching out to startups seemed like a straightforward task at first. I had a list of startup names and wanted to send them emails. I aimed to find the registered emails and directors of these startups, which are usually publicly available, and then offer my assistance. However, manually searching for each company's email and other details was too time-consuming. So, I decided to automate the process.

This led me to create a data scraping tool, a script developed with the help of Claude.

The tool I built exceeded my expectations. Here’s a quick look at its performance:

• Total Companies Scraped: 2,160,771
• Number of Batches: 1,441
• First Batch: Started on 2025-03-20 at 16:13:31
• Last Batch: Finished on 2025-03-22 at 08:28:20
• Page Coverage: 100% (72,032 pages)
• Data Integrity: All pages in sequence are present. No gaps detected.
• Number of Rows in Data (excluding header): 2,160,771

Now, back to automating the emailing process.