Profilebud: My First Taste of Startup Success

Profilebud: Instagram Lead Engine (2019–2021) 🚀

Chrome extension that scraped Instagram leads | Grew to $7K MRR | Shut down by Meta

💡 The Original Idea

My senior Abhinav stumbled upon a chrome extension called "Helper Tools for Instagram" with 30K+ installs and a terrible 2.7★ rating, charging $50+/month.

Quick math: even with 2% conversion, that's ~$30K MRR.

His thought? "We can build something way better than this."

🛠️ Joining the Build

I was in my 2nd year when Abhinav brought me into Profilebud during the build phase. What started as helping out became my obsession I eventually transitioned working full time on it alongside my college.

We built a Chrome extension that scraped Instagram leads (emails, phones, bio info) from followers, likers, commenters, hashtags. 1 in 10 Instagram accounts actually have contact info!

Rookie mistake: We spent several months building features before launching. Too much fun adding bells and whistles.

Lesson: Ship fast, iterate faster.

✅ Launch Reality Check

Users were confused as hell. Thank God for live chat our DMs were flooded with "How does this work?"

This confusion was gold. Through reactive support, we connected with Rob Level (300K+ YouTube subs) who became our affiliate.

🚀 Growth That Made Us Believe

Within 2 months: $1.5K MRR.

We hired a design prodigy, who revamped our UI/UX. Result: 30% month-over-month growth.

By October 2020: $2.5K MRR with 100+ five star reviews (4.9★ average).

😨 Fear It Might Shut Down

October 2020: Our biggest competitor shut down. Instagram was sending cease and desist letters post Cambridge Analytica.

It became a cat and mouse game. Instagram rate-limited APIs, forcing us to use expensive residential proxies. We were sitting on a ticking time bomb.

The race was on to make money before shutdown.

🛠️ The White Label Hustle

We met Luke Maguire, king of JVZoo affiliate marketing. In our panic, we made a shitty deal 15% of profits for a white labeled "Profilemate."

Luke sold $1.5M+ worth. Our 15% cut (~$120K) funded our next startup. Sometimes bad deals work out. 🤷‍♂️

🤖 Scaling Beyond Chrome

Chrome extension limitation: ~1,000 leads/day per account. Clients wanted more: "Just give us clean leads in Google Sheets. We'll pay $1,000+."

Ding ding ding! 🔔

We built a backend system with bulk IG accounts and proxy rotation. Launched ProfileZoo (pay-per-lead model): $4K MRR in month one.

Combined: ~$7K MRR by mid 2021.

🔥 Doomsday: July 29, 2021

Instagram's cease and desist arrived. Game over.

10K+ active users, 4.9 star rating we got too big. Meta banned our personal accounts too.

Couldn't fight Meta (hate legal drama), so we shut down. Serviced existing customers through backdoors until scraping became impossible.

😌 Reflections

No regrets.

Profilebud was our first real startup success. Building, hustling, growing a team I was truly flowing with life. It taught me I'm obsessed with connecting systems and solving real problems.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. Just maybe with less Platform risk next time. 😅

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Next up: Influencerbit / Engagebud, Journey on Shopify and raising $100K.