PostCopilot

Threads launched without a follower export option. The public Graph API doesn't expose follower lists. The only alternatives were paid scraping APIs ($0.50–$5 per 1,000 records on Apify, ScrapingBee, Bright Data) or cloud-based scrapers that upload your data to their servers.

I built a Chrome extension that does it locally instead — auto-scrolls any public Threads profile and saves followers / following / posts / search results to CSV, JSON, or XLSX. The actual list never leaves your browser.

Eight weeks in, here's what's happened:

WHAT'S WORKING

— 9,000+ export sessions per week, across 2,000+ unique target Threads profiles.

— Strongest demographic by a wide margin: Asia (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Chinese-speaking creators).

— Median export size: 710 followers. P90: 5,200. P99: 100,000.

— Zero customer support burden — the auto-scroll handles rate-limit pauses, retries, pagination. I've spent maybe 30 minutes on user support all month.

WHAT'S NOT WORKING

— The web side of the product (postcopilot.ai with an AI post generator, video downloader, etc.) gets ~85 weekly active users. Extension is 100× the web traffic. SEO is the bottleneck.

— "Threads post generator" ranks position 22 in Google. Doing on-page SEO + directory submissions to climb.

— Pro tier exists but conversion is low — most users only need free-tier exports.

WHAT I'M LEARNING

1. Distribution beats polish. Chrome Web Store's organic search is doing more for me than my marketing site. The extension's "Threads exporter" listing ranks well in the Web Store.

2. Asia-first wasn't the plan, but it's the reality. The Taiwan/HK creator community needs export tools more than US creators do. I'm now translating the marketing site into zh-TW.

3. Privacy is a real wedge. The "data never leaves your browser" angle has been my best converter against the paid scraper alternatives. People notice.

4. Indie tools can win in spaces big platforms don't care about. Meta isn't going to build follower export. They never will. That's the moat.

What I'd love to know from other indie founders: how did you handle the transition from "extension only" to "build a real growth channel for the website"? My extension is doing fine, but I want to make the web side compound too.