5 products left, but today Proxycurl

Hi friend 👋,

The other day, my friend and I were discussing a recent article we had both read regarding horizontal versus vertical companies. There is no doubt that this is a contentious issue. Their apparent verticality or horizontality can change depending on your perspective. According to the standard definition, a horizontal firm has a diverse clientele spanning multiple industries, while a vertical business caters exclusively to one market segment. Since it is not simple to divide up different industries, this line of reasoning is standard bullsh*t. Are you a vertical or horizontal business if you offer a shopping service? Or, if your target persona includes product managers from several industries, are you a vertical or horizontal company? Generalization is one of the world's worst diseases, and I can't take it when I hear arguments for the sake of generalization.

Aside from all of these vertical or horizontal debates, I respect individuals and teams who focus on specific problems. Every company professional scatters their data all over the place. We have resumes on Linkedin, social accounts, corporate information, and all of the items we've posted are scattered around the space. On the other hand, if we are seated on the opposite side of the table, we will need to do some manual labor to collect everything relating to our target person. As a result, having a people database is both bothersome and necessary. And a Singaporean does it for us by just taking public data from Linkedin.

Today, Proxycurl is our product.

I'm sure most IndieHacker readers are familiar with Steven Goh, the CEO of Proxycurl. Proxycurl is essentially a Linkedin scrapper that does all of the necessary activities to provide you with answers on persons listing, employee listing, company&employee updates, work email checks, and personal email checks. They are almost three years old and have already reached the $5 million ARR range. I say "they," but the team comprises of only six people, so what they accomplished is incredible.

I chose this one specifically for today to emphasize the significance of focus and how, with a low-cost go-to-market strategy, the opportunity you created can be immense. I enjoy Steven's blog and appreciate his honest and sincere attitude. Even if you don't require Proxycurl right now, you should definitely check out Steven's journey!

We’ll talk again tomorrow.

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