Show IH: I'm building a lead gen + CRM tool for web designers targeting local businesses without websites — starting with Spain
The problem I'm solving
In Spain, 40% of local businesses don't have a real web presence. Finding them manually on Google Maps takes 3–5 minutes per business. To build a list of 50 leads: 4 hours of work before sending a single email.
The tools that exist (Webleadr, Resquared, B2BLeadFinder) are English-only, have no CRM, and start at $1,000+ for teams. Nothing exists for the Spanish-speaking freelance market.
What I'm building
WebHunter is a tool that closes the full loop for freelancers and small agencies selling web services to local businesses in Spain. It lets you search by city and sector (restaurants, plumbers, dentists...), filter businesses with no website or fake websites (businesses using Facebook/Instagram as their "official website"), and auto-generate a digital audit per business showing their score, what they're missing, and estimated lost customers per month.
The audit becomes the pitch. Instead of "do you want a website?", you show them exactly what they're losing. Then you manage the whole follow-up from a Kanban pipeline and send outreach directly from the app.
Stack: React + Vite + TypeScript + Tailwind + Supabase + Google Places API + Claude API for the audit generation.
Where I am today
Landing page is live at webhunter.es. Core product is scaffolded with Discovery and Pipeline pages working. Google Places integration and Claude audit generation are in progress.
The insight from user research
I spent time on Reddit (r/webdesign, r/webflow, r/freelance) reading what web designers actually say about finding clients. Everyone uses Outscraper or manual Google Maps. The tools stop at discovery — no CRM, no follow-up, no outreach. The biggest objection that keeps coming up is "businesses without a website usually don't want one." The counter is that's true with a generic pitch. It changes completely when you show them data about what they're losing. That's what the auto-audit is designed to solve.
Note on the screenshot
The landing is in Spanish since this is targeting the Spanish market specifically. The screenshot is Google Translate's auto-translation — "web pages" is a bit literal, the original reads better. The product UI will support both languages. You can visit webhunter.es and Chrome will translate it automatically.
What I'd love feedback on
Does the "audit as pitch" mechanic make sense to you? Has anyone built for the SMB local market — what killed you? Any thoughts on pricing: free tier with 20 searches per month and Pro at 19 euros per month?
Happy to share more details on the stack or go-to-market. Building this as a side project while working full time.
If you want to check it out: https://webhunter.es
It's interesting that you're targeting local businesses in Spain without a web presence, as this could be a lucrative market with relatively little competition. I'd like to know more about your strategy for verifying the accuracy of the lead data, given the manual process of finding these businesses on Google Maps can be time-consuming and prone to errors. How do you plan to scale your lead generation process while maintaining data quality as you expand your customer base?
Good question on data quality, it's one of the core challenges. Right now the data comes from Google Places API, which is reasonably accurate for basic fields like name, address, phone, and website presence. The "no website" detection adds a layer on top: checking whether the website field exists, whether it points to a social network instead of a real domain, and soon whether the site actually resolves and loads properly.
The scaling question is the honest hard part. Google Places API has rate limits and coverage gaps, some smaller towns and niche sectors are underrepresented. The medium-term plan is to combine Places data with additional sources and let users flag inaccurate leads directly in the pipeline, which feeds back into improving the dataset over time. The manual Wizard of Oz phase I'm doing this week with real freelancers will also surface where the data quality breaks down in practice before I over-engineer a solution for a problem that might be smaller than expected.
Short answer: not fully solved yet, but Google Places is a solid starting point for Spain's urban markets where the density is high enough to make the coverage reliable.
The "audit as pitch" mechanic is the real insight here. I do technical pre-sales in industrial automation — same pattern: generic pitch dies, data-backed pitch opens doors. The €19/mo pricing feels right for freelancers. One question: how are you handling businesses that "have" a website but it's genuinely broken or unindexed?
The cross-vertical validation is reassuring — if the same mechanic works in industrial automation pre-sales, the underlying principle is solid regardless of the specific pitch content.
On the broken/unindexed website question: honestly, right now the detection is basic. I'm classifying web status based on whether a website field exists in the Places API response and whether it matches known patterns for fake webs (Facebook, Instagram, Wix free subdomains). A technically broken site or an unindexed one would pass that filter as "has web" and get deprioritized.
That's a real gap. A bar with a website that 404s on mobile or hasn't been touched since 2014 is arguably a better lead than one with no website — they already believe in having one, they just have a bad one. The fix is adding a lightweight check on top of the Places data: HTTP status, mobile rendering score via PageSpeed API, last indexed date. That turns "no web" into a spectrum — no web, fake web, broken web, poor web, outdated web — and each segment gets a different audit angle and pitch.
Adding that to the roadmap. Thanks for surfacing it.
That spectrum framing is sharp - "broken web" is a warmer lead than "no web" because the belief is already there. PageSpeed API layer makes sense. Good luck with it.
Exactly — the belief is already there, you're just closing the gap. Thanks for the nudge on that one.
The audit mechanic is genuinely strong but the failure mode is building it around your assumptions about what a bar owner in Seville needs to hear rather than what actually moves them. That only surfaces in the conversation. One thing worth thinking about for post-sale: once the web designer closes the client, how do they keep that client informed about what's being built and what's coming next? That retention loop is where a lot of agency work quietly falls apart, the client doesn't know the project is progressing and starts to feel ignored. I built ReleaseLog for exactly that layer — public changelog and roadmap for indie SaaS founders, but the same mechanic applies to any ongoing client relationship. tryreleaselog.com. Good luck with Cloza.
The failure mode you're describing — building the audit around assumptions instead of real conversations — is exactly what I'm addressing next. Running the manual workflow with real freelancers before writing more code, specifically to surface what actually moves a bar owner in Seville vs. what I think moves them.
The post-sale retention point is one I hadn't thought about seriously. The tool closes the loop at "client signed" — but you're right that what happens after is where a lot of agency relationships quietly break down. A client who feels ignored cancels or leaves a bad review, which kills referrals. Worth thinking about whether Cloza should have a layer there or stay focused on the pre-sale workflow. For now staying focused, but noted.
Checking out ReleaseLog — the changelog mechanic for client relationships is an interesting angle.
The manual workflow decision is the most valuable thing you can do this week the assumptions about what moves a Seville bar owner will be wrong in specific ways that only surface in a real conversation. Good luck with it. On Cloza staying pre-sale focused for now, that's the right call scope creep at this stage is the enemy. The post-sale layer can wait until the core workflow is proven. Let me know how the first real freelancer session goes.
Agreed on all counts. Will report back once the first manual session happens — hopefully this week. Appreciate the perspective throughout this thread.
Interesting positioning - especially the “audit as pitch” angle. I think that part makes the idea much stronger than just another lead database.
One thing that stood out to me: are you worried that agencies/freelancers might mostly use it for one-time lead scraping and churn quickly after exporting a few hundred businesses?
The CRM + follow-up loop feels like the moat here, but I wonder if the real lock-in could become ongoing lead discovery (“new businesses without websites this week”) or automated follow-up sequences.
Also curious - did you validate whether freelancers in Spain are comfortable paying monthly for this vs. preferring a credit/pay-per-lead model?
The churn risk you're describing is real and it's something I think about. A tool that lets you export 500 leads and cancel is a data product, not a SaaS. The CRM and follow-up loop is deliberately the answer to that — if your active pipeline lives in Cloza, you don't leave.
But your point about ongoing discovery is sharper. "New businesses without websites this week in your city" as a recurring alert is a much stronger retention mechanic than a static database. That's going in the roadmap.
On automated follow-up sequences — yes, that's the logical next layer. Right now it's manual outreach with templates. Sequences that trigger based on pipeline stage are the obvious evolution once the core workflow is validated.
On pricing model: honest answer is I haven't validated it directly with Spanish freelancers yet. My assumption is monthly subscription because it aligns incentives — I want them using the tool consistently, not just exporting once. But a credit model for the audit specifically (pay per audit generated, not per month) could reduce friction for the first conversion. Worth testing both. The next step I'm taking based on feedback in this thread is running the manual workflow for 3-5 Spanish freelancers before building more — that conversation will tell me a lot about pricing preference too.
Well, now with Ai everything becomes easier, whether in Spanish or any other language. From what I've seen, the tool will be very useful for those who work in this area, making it easier to find more clients and, very importantly, saving time. Congratulations on the idea and the execution, may everything go well on your journey...
Thank you João Paulo, really appreciate the kind words. You're right that AI makes the localization less of a barrier — the real value is in the workflow, not the language. Hope to have something worth showing soon.
The "audit becomes the pitch" part is the move. Spanish locals shut down generic offers but engage with "here's what you're losing today".
One thing from running similar AI-generated output in a different vertical: cache aggressively per entity. A second pass on the same place 2 weeks later isn't materially different and the costs compound fast.
Also: the output text has to feel local. Generic SEO scoring won't move Spanish biz owners. Specific anchors do, like "your neighbour ranks for this exact term you don't".
Really useful technical notes, thank you. The caching point is something I'm implementing now — no reason to regenerate the same audit twice, and the API costs compound fast at scale. The "feel local" insight is the one I'm thinking about most. Generic scoring won't move a bar owner in Seville. Specific anchors will — "your competitor three streets away ranks for this exact term and you don't." That's the framing I'm building the audit prompt around.
One update since posting: based on feedback in this thread, I'm reconsidering the name. WebHunter frames the product as a prospecting tool, but the vision is closer to a sales operating system for small web agencies. Thinking about Cloza — evokes "close" without being literal, works in Spanish and English, no ceiling. Would love your take if you have one.
The "audit as the pitch" is the strongest thing in what you're building,
and I think it's worth saying out loud why.
The hardest part of selling to a local business is almost never the
price. The real challenge is that most owners don't even realize there's
a problem hurting their sales, their service, or their operation. And
while the problem stays invisible, there's zero urgency to change
anything.
That's exactly why the audit stops being a complementary feature and
becomes the actual product. It surfaces the bottlenecks, the losses, and
the opportunities the owner couldn't see on their own. The moment the
problem becomes visible, the sale stops being persuasion and turns into
a logical decision.
So if I were you I'd protect that part above everything else. The CRM
and the pipeline are the easy half to copy. The audit is the half that
does the real work, because it changes the buyer before you even pitch.
"It changes the buyer before you even pitch" — that's the clearest articulation of why the audit is the core product, not a feature. I'm keeping that framing front and center in everything I build from here.
Quick update: following feedback in this thread, I'm moving away from the WebHunter name. Three independent people flagged the same thing — it frames the product as a prospecting tool and limits the mental category. Landing on Cloza instead. Shorter, evokes "close", no ceiling, works in both languages. Curious if that resonates with you or feels off.
That’s interesting — what I’ve noticed is that even when lead generation works, the real issues often show up after leads enter the flow.
Things like drop-offs between steps, unclear follow-up, or inconsistencies in the data can have a much bigger impact than expected.
It’s usually not obvious from the surface metrics.
Completely agree — the pipeline drop-offs are where most lead gen tools fall apart. Discovery is the easy half. What happens after the lead enters the flow is where the real work is. That's exactly why I'm building the CRM and follow-up tracking as first-class features, not afterthoughts. Tracking where leads die in the funnel is on the roadmap.
Targeting Spanish-only is a smart positioning choice — the existing English tools really do leave a wide gap. From building a small iOS app solo (a Captio replacement for note-taking), I've seen the same dynamic: localized + niche tends to beat horizontal-and-global at the early stage because your message can be specific enough to actually land. What worked for my first 20-ish users was pretending to be the tool first — manually doing the workflow for a handful of people in DMs and sending them the result. The friction they hit by hand told me which features I could cut before writing a line of code. Have you tried running the "manual version of WebHunter" with a few Madrid freelancers to compress the build/feedback loop?
This is the most actionable comment in the thread. The "pretend to be the product" approach is something I've read about but hadn't seriously considered doing before writing more code.
The honest answer is no — I haven't run the manual version yet. I've validated the problem through Reddit research and competitor analysis, but I haven't sat with a real freelancer and done the workflow by hand for them.
You're right that the friction points hit manually are exactly the ones worth solving in code. The audit format especially — I have assumptions about what a Madrid bar owner needs to hear to feel urgency, but those assumptions haven't been tested against a real freelancer trying to use them in a pitch.
Changing my next week based on this. Instead of connecting the Google Places API and building the Claude audit prompt, I'm going to find 3-5 Spanish web designers, offer to run the manual workflow for them, and see where it breaks. The build can wait a week. The learning can't.
Thanks for this — genuinely the most useful redirect I've gotten since posting.
building for local SMBs is a brutal grind because their churn is insanely high and they dont have any budget. but selling to web designers who target them is actually a smart way to bypass that problem. for pricing 19 euros feels a bit low if you are actually helping them land clients. if one client is worth 1k to a web designer, they would definately pay 49 or 99 a month if the tool actually brings them validated leads.
That pricing feedback is really useful, thank you. You’re right — if the tool actually delivers validated leads and the audit does the pitch work, €19 undersells the value completely. I went conservative to reduce friction for early adopters but €49-99 makes much more sense once the workflow is proven. Will revisit after the first real users validate the core mechanic. Appreciate the feedback and time!
The “audit as pitch” mechanic makes sense. The strongest part is that you are not just helping freelancers find businesses without websites. You are helping them turn a cold lead into a specific business case before outreach starts.
That is a much sharper wedge than “lead gen for web designers.” Discovery alone is easy to copy. The stronger layer is: find the local business, diagnose the revenue gap, generate the audit, then manage follow-up in one workflow. That makes WebHunter feel closer to a sales operating system for small web agencies, not just another Google Maps scraper.
One thing I’d watch is the name. WebHunter works for the first wedge, but it may keep the product feeling like a prospecting tool. If this grows into CRM, audits, outreach, and Spanish-speaking agency workflows, a broader SaaS-style brand like Beryxa .com could age better than a name tied mostly to hunting websites.
Thanks for this. "sales operating system for small web agencies" is a much sharper framing than what I had. The audit mechanic is exactly the wedge I'm betting on. On the name, agreed it may feel limiting long term, but keeping focus for now. Will revisit once the core workflow is validated with real users. Thank you so much for the feedback and point of view on this.
That makes sense, but I’d be careful with “revisit later.”
The issue is that users do not only validate the workflow. They also validate the category they think you belong in.
If they first understand WebHunter as “find websites to pitch,” that frame can stick even after you add audits, outreach, CRM, follow-up, and Spanish-speaking agency workflows.
That is the risk.
The product you described is not just hunting websites. It is closer to a sales operating system for small web agencies: find the opportunity, diagnose the business gap, generate the audit, and manage the follow-up.
That is a bigger category than WebHunter suggests.
So I would not rename just for branding taste, but I would pressure-test the name now while it is still cheap to change. Once users, landing pages, outreach, and product memory attach to WebHunter, changing later becomes harder.
That is why Beryxa.com came to mind. It feels more like a serious SaaS/workflow brand than a prospecting tool, and it gives the product room to grow beyond the first wedge.
If the long-term vision is really audits plus outreach plus CRM for small web agencies, I’d compare both directions now before WebHunter becomes too fixed.
You were right, and the thread proved it — three independent people flagged the same thing without coordinating. That's not coincidence. Moving to Cloza. Evokes "close" without being literal, works in Spanish and English, and doesn't have the prospecting ceiling. New landing is live at cloza.com. Thanks for pushing on this while it was still cheap to change.