ImportYeti
👤 Dave Applegate (Ran WrestlingMart (wrestling gear); a decade in supply chains — he lived the overseas-supplier hunt he later solved.)🌐 site𝕏
Type a company and see which overseas factories supply it — pulled from 70M public customs records, free.
Will it work? · our read
Usable wins. He made locked-but-public data usable — free got 2M users and trust. Public data means low control, freemium revenue is weak.
01How the money moves
US Customs
70M public B/L
70M public B/L
→
Crawl & make
searchable + maps
searchable + maps
→
Free core →
paid tiers + PowerQuery
paid tiers + PowerQuery
02The numbers
2M+usersStatedfree + paid
Built the first version in 27 days, posted to Reddit as "Free Bill of Lading Database," then ran 1,000+ Zoom calls with importers to fix it. Tool or Die
Revenue about $1M (prospeo.io est · unverified) · $0 raised official. ImportYeti doesn't publish revenue, so this stays an estimate.
03Weight class — CENTStap an axis
Control Low
Built on public customs data — anyone can access it. Control comes from the UX & trust layer, not exclusive data.
04The key move
Why him
10 years wrestling with supply chains (running WrestlingMart) — he felt the pain personally and knew the data existed. Founder-market fit, not a tourist.
fact
The counter-intuitive move
The data was already public — rivals locked it behind $125–899/mo. He gave it free, launched in 27 days on Reddit, ran 1,000+ user calls to make it usable.
free·calls=fact
05How they got their usersthe distribution playbook
ImportYeti's early-user story is documented first-hand on its own About page: a raw Reddit launch plus obsessive one-on-one user contact.
Launched raw into a niche subreddit
On April 15, 2020 the founder posted the first version to Reddit's FBA (Amazon seller) community titled "Free Bill of Lading Database." People tore it apart (ugly UI, dirty data) — which he read as proof of demand: nobody rage-comments on a product they don't want to exist.
Turned critics into a build loop
Instead of defending, he DM'd the harshest commenters, thanked them, and shipped fixes over the following week — converting the launch backlash into the first engaged users and a rapid iteration cycle.
1,000+ user Zoom calls during lockdown
Through 2020-21 he ran over 1,000 Zoom calls with importers, operators, and eCommerce founders who showed exactly where the product broke; that word-of-mouth-plus-listening loop compounded to 1,000,000 then 2,000,000 users with no VC and cash-flow positive.
What you can steal: Ship a rough, free version straight into the one niche community your users already live in, and treat brutal feedback as the buy signal — then DM the critics to turn them into your first users. our read
06Where the moat is
Not the data (it's public). It's:
Process · 70M records made usableBranding · the free, trusted B/L tool (4.9★)
07How it diesmedium confidence
Public data = anyone can copy it. Stay free forever with no paid layer → no revenue to fund the upkeep 70M records demand. The moat is UX + trust, and both decay if you stop shipping. our read
Show evidence · counter
Evidence: Public data (fact) + freemium revenue is the weak CENTS axis (Time).
Counter: But 2M users & 4.9★ trust = a UX/brand moat that is hard to copy quickly — likely more durable than "public data = copyable" implies.
08Against rivals
Rivals sell to big enterprises at high prices. ImportYeti won the long tail (small importers, FBA sellers) that the others priced out. our read
09Who uses it
🛒 FBA / e-com sellers — find suppliers🔍 Sourcing teams🕵 Competitor analysis
★Would it work for you?
Do you know a dataset that's technically public but practically locked — in a domain you've actually lived in?
That was Dave's whole edge: 10 years in supply chains + public B/L nobody made usable. We don't score you — you answer.
🚀Use it as a launchpada prompt for your own AI
Copy → paste into your AI → then develop it freely in the conversation.
You are a sharp, honest startup strategist. Use the proven case below as a launchpad for MY idea — help me find my own angle, not copy it.
<my_profile>
Domain I know: [your domain]
My unfair advantage (access/audience): [your edge]
Interests: [your interests]
Resources & goal: [your resources] · [your goal]
</my_profile>
<case name="ImportYeti" model="data">
What it does: scraped 70M public customs records, made them searchable for free; rivals charged $125-899/mo → 2M users; solo-ish, $0 VC
Why it won (moat): not the data (it's public) — the UX + trust layer
Weakest axis (CENTS): Control low (public data, anyone can copy) + freemium revenue weak
How it could die: stay free forever → can't fund upkeep of 70M records
</case>
<task>
Be a skeptical operator, not a cheerleader. No generic startup platitudes. If my angle is weak, say so plainly.
First, a reality check: markets like this mostly fail. State the honest base rate (how crowded/hard is this?) and the ONE specific thing that would have to be true for ME to be the exception — grounded in my profile above.
Then a compact table:
- Fit — does this pattern suit my edge, or fight my gap?
- Angle — my sharpest differentiation vs ImportYeti (concrete, not "better UX")
- Distribution — exactly where my first 100 users come from (this is the hardest part — be specific, not "content marketing")
- Risk — its "how it dies" (above) in MY situation
Finish with one line: "The single thing to do next."
Use only the facts above; if data is thin, say so — never invent numbers.
Then stay with me and go deeper on whatever I ask — tech stack, rough cost & time, the smallest MVP to test, pricing, or timing.
</task>
✓ Copied — paste into your AI
👤Placeholders like [your domain] auto-fill from your profile — example values for now.Set up profile →
SourcesSources last checked 25 August 2026 · 1 figure here has no cited source
· Founder & story — importyeti.com/about, Tool or Die· Revenue est. — prospeo.io (3rd-party) · Rivals — ImportGenius· ★Reviews — G2 ★4.9 · 366
Revenue about $1M is a third-party estimate (ImportYeti doesn't publish it) — tagged unverified. Users (2M+), $0 funding, 27-day build & 1,000 calls are the founder's own account. CENTS & moat are our read. We never score you.