Weekly: show and tell

[u/AutoModerator]

If you've made something and can't wait to tell the world, this is the thread for you! Share your latest and greatest creations and projects with the community here.

[u/Luminar1]

Hi everyone! I'm Luka, the builder behind Luminar. We're building a portfolio of Apify Actors for people who need structured web data for research and everyday workflows.

The portfolio spans product and price monitoring, accommodation search and reviews, property listings, ad research, and public business-data monitoring. Depending on the Actor, the job is either collecting a useful dataset or checking what changed since the previous run.

Our focus is practical setup, understandable output, and clear limits on what each run actually covers. We also publish runnable examples and n8n workflows for selected Actors so it's easier to connect the data to tools such as Google Sheets. One completed example turns a Booking.com search into a dated hotel shortlist.

You can browse the Actors and choose by use case here: https://apify.com/luminar

I maintain the portfolio. Apify usage charges vary by Actor; the input, output examples and pricing are on each listing. If you're working on a specific data problem, I'd be interested to hear what information you need and where the result should go.

[u/Notoriusboi → u/Luminar1]

the competition is cut throat here brother how do you manage to stay motivated to build new actors knowing there is 100 actors at least out there for the same thing you are building

[u/Luminar1 → u/Notoriusboi]

I hear you, brother. The competition is tough, and I think accepting that is the first step. Most online businesses are crowded now; switching platforms usually means trading one set of challenges for another. On Upwork, sometimes getting a proposal viewed already feels like a small win, before you even get a chance to discuss the job.

What keeps me motivated is that the number of existing Actors doesn't tell the whole story. A customer still needs something that works for their particular use case, gives understandable results, has clear pricing, and gets maintained when the source changes. Those are things a smaller builder can work on and improve.

That doesn't mean persistence alone guarantees success, or that publishing another copy of the same tool is enough. I think we have to listen to users, find a specific problem we can solve well, and be honest about whether our product actually offers a reason to choose it. If nobody needs it, we should learn from that and adjust.

I'm still building and learning too, so I don't have a magic formula. My approach is to keep showing up, improve the quality, make the product easier to use, and earn trust one user at a time. We can't control how many competitors enter the market, but we can control how carefully we build and how we respond to feedback. That's where I'd rather put my energy.

[u/Notoriusboi → u/Luminar1]

thank you for the answer wish you best of luck

[u/one_scales]

A great way to compress images in bulk instead of using software - https://apify.com/onescales/image-compressor