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Remote OK Open Startup
- hwers 5y agoHoly shit this is the most inspiring thing I've seen in a long while.
- DelTaco 5y agoIt would be nice if you could filter by salary
- pieterhg 5y agoWill add this soon!
- privacyonsec 5y agoYour startup valuation is at ~$17M, would you sell it if you had an offer ?
- satvikpendem 5y agoMight want to look at Pieter Levels' open revenue for NomadList, he created both these sites: https://nomadlist.com/open https://nomadlist.com/open I believe he's pulling in ~2 million USD ARR with both combined. When I asked him about both ventures on the NomadList Slack group, he said that while NomadList originally made more money, RemoteOK started to make a lot more simply because it's B2B while NomadList is B2C. The difference between companies and individuals paying for stuff is vast. So he said to target B2B for startups in general.
- cko 5y agoI remember following his blog ten years ago when he was doing some YouTube music thing in Thailand. There was an post where he got burglarized in Amsterdam at one point. Then he does the Nomadlist and RemoteOK thing. Because I followed him before he was a smashing success ($$$), it made me question the whole survivorship bias thing. Then again it shows he was always a prolific content creator and always interacted with his audience.
- satvikpendem 5y agoCheck this video out where he goes over his past projects: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6reLWfFNer0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=6reLWfFNer0 The truth is, out of the dozen or so products he made, only two had real commercial success, NomadList and RemoteOK. So there is survivorship bias present, he just kept trying until he succeeded.
- aunty_helen 5y agoPretty standard for an entrepreneur. I have a friend that's finally hit success, on his 19th attempt. Me, I've had my first failure and I'm in the process of starting my second.
- giarc 5y agoStarting your second failure, or second entrepreneurial project? :)
- andi999 5y agoVery good point. Here is my take: maybe beiing able to build an audience is the main driver for success for a business (of course you also need a product). So the survivorship bias happened before you followed him. Or more positive: maybe anybody who can build a big audience and knows to code will probably be successful in business.
- aunty_helen 5y agoBeing a bit eccentric also. I discovered nomadlist after hearing what being a nomad was all about (whilst accidentally being one). He had already been a nomad and made a pretty slick page. As more and more people became nomads it was always there to tie it all together. For example, each city you go to will have a different crowd of nomads, different vibe, different meetup style, whatsapp or facebook, monthly weekly or casual events etc etc. However, this website ties it all together in a consistent fashion, I want to pick where I go next, how do I compare interesting things to me about a place I've never been.
- samstave 5y agoHow get invite to nomad slack?
- satvikpendem 5y agoBuy a NomadList subscription
- warent 5y agoI've been thinking about doing something similar with my SaaS business that does about $2k mrr, but did NOT consider something this comprehensive. Seeing this just inspires me even more to do the same. Too bad the link to the open startup website is broken: https://open-startup.com/ https://open-startup.com/ would love to see this become a real collective. I'd join!
- maxekman 5y agoAwesome looking dashboard! Really inspiring.
- janvdberg 5y agoEarlier this year he tweeted: "http://remoteok.io http://remoteok.io is a single PHP file called "index.php"" https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1381709793769979906 https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1381709793769979906 This could theoretically be the most complex PHP file you have ever seen, but it's probably not. The message here is that's not what counts (number of files, complexity etc.). The message is: create something of value. If one PHP file does that, great.
- vincentmarle 5y ago> The message is: create something of value. I've learned that lesson when working on a $100M ARR product that was basically thrown together PHP spaghetti code that was launched as a prototype and never was refactored again. Most terrible code I've ever seen, yet made a LOT of money.
- mike_d 5y agoIf it makes sense to you, and you don't expect to grow an engineering team - go for it. Some of my best stuff was built by embracing "done beats best practice."
- roofwellhams 5y agoYou can create the most valuable thing, if you have no eyeballs is useless. You need marketing, an audience to show to. That's key. You can even pre sell a product you don't have yet to an audience.
- PUSH_AX 5y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong but he's also not an experienced engineer (or at least wasn't), he was self/google taught and focused on just making the vision he had, copying copious amounts of code from places like SO. So it completely makes sense in his context. How was he ever going to focus on the other code qualities? If on the other hand you're experienced it's probably about finding that trade off between perfectly orchestrated software and having something that delivers your vision in an acceptable amount of time.
- 5y ago
- kfk 5y agoI was trying to figure out how support works for remote.ok and nomadlist.com, both Pieter’s products, short story: there is none. I got caught by lack of support for these SaaS multiple times for my company, it’s not fun. As a company owner I expect support. I don’t get why we would do our best to completely remove any kind of human interaction from the equation, I mean I get why, but then be very upfront about it and mention it clearly somewhere that your pricing cannot cover support.
- MattGaiser 5y agoWhat do you mean by lack of support? Lack of a person to talk to or just lack of reliability in the software?
- pieterhg 5y agoI'm Pieter and that's simply not true. I have after sale customer support for both Nomad List and Remote OK. What I don't have is support for people that aren't customers, because I don't have the resources to manage that. If you're a paid customer on Nomad List or Remote OK you can report bugs which I'll fix, or request features, and if I like them I'll build them. That's most of my work every day. See Nomad List's bug reports channel for an example of it. I'm also very lenient with giving refunds, if people cancel their membership on Nomad List they automatically get a refund if it's within 7 days. Without even asking for it. Anyone who posts a job on Remote OK and isn't happy I can re-post it for you or get you a refund etc.
- sydthrowaway 5y agoWhy bust my ass at FAANG when I can just make a janky job portal and make 10x more. Sigh. I wish I was street smart and not book smart.
- basisword 5y agoIf you truly think you can just throw together a 'janky' job portal and make 10x more you should stay at the FAANG.
- jerrre 5y agoYup, there's a lot more bootstrappers who think the opposite: "why bust my ass doing 20jobs at once trying to get a business going when I could just show up and do plumbing and earn 10x more at FAANG."
- sombremesa 5y agoFirst, life isn’t all about money. Although, If you don’t enjoy what you do you, it’s probably best to find something else. Second, people make things like this all the time (anyone remember the million dollar web page where ads sold by the pixel?) - that doesn’t necessarily mean anything for you or me. It certainly doesn’t mean we should all be endeavoring to create the next PR sensation. Finally, be careful what you wish for.
- jerrygoyal 5y agoit's a lot less about building and much more about marketing.
- jordanmoconnor 5y agoIt's all about responsibility and ownership. Pieter is responsible for everything - product, design, sales, marketing, documentation, customer support, etc. At a job, you do your job and someone else does the other jobs. Less responsibility, less income. I do recommend starting something like this on the side, and learning all of the skills listed above. In 5 years or less you can have a side project that makes more than your job with only an hour or two a day.
- stanislavb 5y agoMy shameless plug of trying to "ride" the remote job boards trend https://99remotejobs.com https://99remotejobs.com. What differentiates it from other similar job boards - it's free and job offers are syndicated to both SaaSHub and LibHunt. My target is to keep it free until it get's some traction. And it seems it might be getting there. Last 2 days, job offers have been receiving about ~1,000 views.
- woutr_be 5y agoGood luck, I've tried to do a niche job board as well before, but it never took off sadly.
- pieterhg 5y agoI think doing the same might not work because the problem is pretty solved now. I recommend trying new niches like for ex crypto and web3 jobs or whatever trend is next. I started Remote OK in 2015 when remote work was still HEAVILY frowned upon. Perfect time to start something. After COVID, remote work is now almost the default. So go to a trend that's nascent and jump in, then strap on and ride it for years until it hits mainstream.
- langitbiru 5y agoI'm jumping into the part-time jobs niche: https://parttime.careers https://parttime.careers I am building this because I don't want to work full-time. So I want to collect all the part-time jobs. We'll see whether I can turn it into a successful business. Even if I got 10% of the revenue of Remote OK, I would be very happy. Haha.
- pieterhg 5y agoGodspeed to you!
- rozenmd 5y agoIf you're interested in a survivorship bias-less(?) write up on trying to be like Pieter, I've been at this for years: - https://maxrozen.com/2018-review-starting-an-internet-business https://maxrozen.com/2018-review-starting-an-internet-busine... - https://maxrozen.com/2019-further-reflections-trying-to-start-an-internet-business https://maxrozen.com/2019-further-reflections-trying-to-star... - https://maxrozen.com/indiehacking-3-year-review https://maxrozen.com/indiehacking-3-year-review
- ianjakobs 5y agoGreat reads, thanks for posting. I've very recently been inspired to start being more open about my projects, so it's good to have a few more real-life examples of others doing it.
- bckr 5y agoWow, i loved the first link. Raw, like a field journal summary
- ricardobayes 5y agoIt's definitely difficult, I started a remote work site before covid but it didn't take off. Couldn't solve the 'chicken-or-egg' marketplace problem, I couldn't get enough companies to post jobs and people found an empty site apalling.
- randomsearch 5y agoPosting in case people haven’t come across this advice: the trick to a two sided market startup is usually to find a way to provide value to one side without the other side being present. So, for example, you build a free platform that helps remote contractors manage their hours, billing, invoices, leads etc. Then, once you’ve built up an audience of contractors you say to the companies “hey, I have a million people working on here, I think they’d be interested in job opportunities, so I’ve made an opt in jobs board / newsletter” and go from there. Of course, it might not succeed, but AFAICT this is the general strategy for solving this problem.
- panorama 5y agoSlightly off-topic but it was Pieter's dashboards like these, specifically the robots downtime grid, that inspired to build my own internal metrics and status dashboard for my SaaS. I have beautiful 3rd party UIs for superfluous stuff like my stock portfolio, why not my own business's data? It's one of those things that can take some time to build and doesn't add much value for customers at first, but delights me each time I visit it. And now that I've started measuring a bunch of different stuff, it has ultimately translated into indirect better user experience because I spot anomalies earlier.
- pieterhg 5y agoRemote OK Founder Pieter here, thanks for submitting this and I hope everyone enjoys seeing it. All of this is possible because I've been a HN reader since 2010 and was inspired by all of you and especially @patio11 on here to bootstrap my own things and do it VERY publicly. My entire marketing strategy is just sharing all my ups and downs, instead of paying for ads. A lot like @patio11 did in his blog posts. This /open page is just another part of that besides my incessant tweeting about every little feature I built for years at https://twitter.com/levelsio https://twitter.com/levelsio. I still can't understand it's over $1M/y, it's an insane number for me and I think I would have never believed I'd ever get there if you told me years ago. COVID had a lot do with making remote work suddenly big and my site benefits from that a lot. Thank you Hacker News! P.S. This wouldn't be possible without my server guy @daniellockyer, who has helped keep my VPS up for years. P.S.2. I donate 5% of all revenue to https://stripe.com/climate https://stripe.com/climate, with about $75,000/y being donated now.
- dotsam 5y agoI have enjoyed following your projects for some years. Thank you for sharing your work. I very much admire your 5% revenue donation, although I wonder if Stripe Climate is the most effective way to deliver positive impact. If you haven't already, I would encourage you to check out www.givingwhatwecan.org/donate to see research on optimising charitable giving for doing the most good.
- dubcanada 5y agoDo you have any information to state otherwise? Giving What We Can stopped doing research on charities about 5 years ago, so now it's nothing more than an advertisement.
- dotsam 5y agoI do not have information to state otherwise. Giving What We Can provides links to research (see below), and is described as 'the best overall resource on effective giving' at https://www.effectivealtruism.org/get-involved/give-to-outstanding-charities/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/get-involved/give-to-outst... which is why I linked to it. If I were donating $75,000 a year to tackle climate change, I would want to feel like my donation was going to be put to the best possible use. I appreciate that not everyone takes this attitude towards their gifts, but personally I would feel most comfortable making my donation towards funds / organisations / charities that have been scrutinised for evidence-based effectiveness. I would encourage anyone who wants to donate and cares about maximising the effectiveness of their gifts to read up on Effective Altruism before making a donation decision. Giving What We Can has a page on climate change: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/research/other-causes/climate-change/ https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/research/other-causes/climat... Which links to research by the Founders Pledge published last year: https://founderspledge.com/stories/climate-change-executive-summary https://founderspledge.com/stories/climate-change-executive-...
- hello4353 5y agoNice site.
- privacyonsec 5y agoI'm wondering how much time do you put in contacting prospects and looking for customers ? and how big your team is ? I already heard of single person startups that are working very well but what about remoteok ?
- pieterhg 5y agoNone. I don't contact prospects, I don't look for customers. My "team" is just me doing almost everything from coding the site to making the database to the design to the logo to the marketing and PR. Most of my traffic is word-of-mouth (look this guy made his own startup with just a PHP script and no team, eg this HN thread is marketing too) and from Google for "remote jobs". Recently, I hired a part-time contractor for customer support on Remote OK. And @daniellockyer has been a very-part-time contractor to keep the VPS secure and fast over the years. But that's it.
- sebst 5y agoRemoteOK is a one source of my Python job aggregator https://news.python.sc/jobs/ https://news.python.sc/jobs/ As other commentators here pointed out, it’s obvious that a “job board” isn’t a product per se, but needs a solid audience: either through constant interaction with your followers (like Pieter does) or by corporate marketing spent (like monster.com)
- nickelcitymario 5y ago94.3% net profit margin?!? I am in the wrong business.
- andrethegiant 5y agoPieter, why do you use the same font across all of your sites?
- jerrre 5y agoI'd guess: because it's easy and it works, and it is far from the most important thing to work on?
- kyawzazaw 5y agoI think the font does not need to be same across different sites if they are giving different value/objectives.
- pieterhg 5y agoI like the font :D, and I like that red color too so I use it everywhere. Also to keep things simple
- tinyhouse 5y agoThis is another great example (even an extreme one) that in software, a small team can build great things. But it's a good thing for society that most companies are not like this. Otherwise, many of us won't have jobs.
- rightbyte 5y agoBuild great things? Come on, it is a job board depending on network effect. I mean it seems fine and all but it is not a great thing.
- rafaqueque 5y agoNot sure how you define great, but as long as you provide a platform for people to find new opportunities and is quite successful for both parties, I'd say it's great and quite an achievement.
- tinyhouse 5y agoIt provides value for many companies and people. It's very profitable. Hence it's great in my book. The founder also built NomandList (also mostly by himself I believe) which helps many nomads out there to socialize and connect. Both qualify as great things.
- pieterhg 5y agoThank you. And yes Nomad List is also 99.9% hand built by me.
- sealthedeal 5y agoI love this, my company, Routefusion, which is not bootstrapped :(, is going to be posting quite a few jobs on here. Not only because we need to hire, but because this business is so open and transparent with everything, it makes me happy + makes feel like I understand exactly where my money is going. It also helps that the candidates on this board are probably very engaged which leads to better reply rates for the posters :) Thank you for building this and inspiring even the non-bootstrapped people to do cool things like this!
- ziansopian9 5y agohttps://t.me/Kejutandana_bot?start=r03836883511 https://t.me/Kejutandana_bot?start=r03836883511
- sails 5y agoThe VS Code view is quite a nice touch :) https://remoteok.io/vscode https://remoteok.io/vscode
- imwillofficial 5y agoI was just looking for this site yesterday. Thanks Hacker News!