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Guillaume Lancrenon, a software engineer and solopreneur with 15 years of experience, has been using Apify for nearly a decade. As the CTO and CPO of getcockpit.io, a sales training platform, Guillaume doesn't use Apify for his main business. Instead, he uses the platform for two key purposes: backend processing in his side projects and, more significantly, creating and selling Actors on Apify Store. His experience with Apify reflects the growing opportunities in the Apify ecosystem, particularly in Actor development and monetization.
The search for a cloud scraper
Back in 2016, Guillaume faced a common developer's challenge: finding a reliable, cloud-based web scraping tool. He needed a solution that could handle frequent runs and navigate around CAPTCHAs. A colleague's recommendation led him to Apify.
"A friend of mine told me about Apify back then because I was looking for solutions to do some website scraping and I needed a cloud solution and not some Chrome extension.”
-- Guillaume Lancrenon
From scraping to full-stack development
Over time, Guillaume's use of Apify expanded beyond web scraping. He explains his current workflow:
"I'm using Apify for two specific use cases. The first one is for some of my side projects that require some backend processing that I want to scale with Apify Actors. So it's a way of not coding on my servers, but part of the backend. And the second part is building Actors that I put on Store so that I can make some side money."
-- Guillaume Lancrenon
Why Apify stands out
Apify's reliability is a standout feature. He notes, "Well, it's up 99% of the time. I mean, when Actors fail, it's almost never because of the infrastructure of Apify, it's mainly because of the way I coded the Actor or because the websites I'm scraping or interacting with are changing their own APIs or interfaces."
The platform's cloud-based technology enables uninterrupted operation, free from local hardware limitations. Guillaume also values the intuitive developer interface, which simplifies the building and debugging process. He's particularly impressed with Apify's ability to work around anti-scraping measures.
Additionally, Guillaume uses Apify’s built-in customer communication tools, like the issues tab, which allows direct interaction with users. The process for publishing and monetizing Actors, coupled with Apify's API integration capabilities for automation, are a complete solution for developers.
Turning code into cash
Apify's true value for Guillaume lies in its ability to transform code into a profitable business and passive income. He explains, "If I wanted to do it straight away on GCP or AWS, every time I would want to make some new Actor, it would take me a lot of work to work on the domain, hosting, coding, the availability, and I could not actually rent it to other customers."
By handling infrastructure and providing a built-in marketplace, Apify allows Guillaume to focus on coding and problem-solving while easily monetizing his work. This approach has significantly boosted his income.
"I was making something like $500 a month on other side projects, but now Apify is bringing in more than $2,000 from Apify Store: that's 4x more than my previous side projects."
-- Guillaume Lancrenon
| Actor | Description |
|---|---|
| Email & Phone Extractor | For marketing and sales teams looking to build a database of potential clients. Very cheap, fast, and unlimited. |
| Linkedin Company Finder | Enter a company listing and retrieve their LinkedIn link. |
| Linkedin People Finder | Enter an indivuals listing and retrieve their LinkedIn link. |
| Linkedin x GPT | Ask a "prompt" question for a list of LinkedIn links. |
| Linkedin Scrapper | Import a list of LinkedIn links and retrieve the content, bypassing any LinkedIn limitation (thousands of profiles per hour). |
The future with Apify
Guillaume sees growing potential in Apify's Actor ecosystem. His income from Apify Actors now outpaces his other side projects, underscoring the platform's importance in his strategy.
"The greatest potential to me is Apify Actors. It’s my go to for new side projects. I love when Apify users email me requests for new Actors or contact me through Apify issues”
-- Guillaume Lancrenon
Guillaume's experience with Apify shows how developers can use the platform not just for coding, but also for creating useful, profitable tools. As more people need custom data extraction and automation, Apify's way of making development, deployment, and selling easier is becoming increasingly valuable for developers.
Check out our video if you'd like to learn how to build your own profitable scrapers and earn passive income:
