Launching a Web-Scraping API MVP–Release Now or Wait?

1 points by msmello 10 hours ago

I’m building a new web-scraping API (similar to Firecrawl, Apify, or ScrapingBee) and am on the fence about launching the MVP now vs. waiting until I complete two related services (Verðandi and Skuld) that will handle data differently—hopefully giving me an “unfair advantage” in the future.

My questions: 1. Timing: Should I release the MVP now to gather feedback and iterate, or keep developing behind closed doors until I have a more robust offering? 2. Open Sourcing: I’d like to open-source the core scraping functionality while offering a paid “cloud version” on top. Do most projects split the code into a separate open-source repo, or is there a more streamlined approach?

Any advice or experiences with launching MVPs prematurely vs. waiting, and how to handle an “open core” model effectively, would be much appreciated!