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Hi everyone, About a year ago I created a web site to help people stay organized when looking for a job. Since then I've refined it to the point where I feel l

Hi everyone, About a year ago I created a web site to help people stay organized when looking for a job. Since then I've refined it to the point where I feel like it's now a viable product. I'm lacking two important things, however: a) a business model and b) time to market it. My preference is to sell it, and I would greatly appreciate advice on selling a niche site like this. In the meantime I want to try and get some traffic to it, so advice on optimizing the 30 minutes a day I have to do marketing would be awesome. Incidentally, I've been using the site to keep track of some of my marketing efforts. As I search for people to contact regarding the site, I'm storing their information and keeping track of the "next action" - review their site, email, etc. Do any of you feel you'd benefit from using a site like happyjobsearch to keep track of your marketing efforts? A little more about the site: Its main benefit is providing a tool to approach job searching systematically. I got laid off twice in three months last year, and I found that it was very demotivating to approach job seeking in a sloppy, reactive manner. So I tried to take a GTD approach and do things in stages: collect, review, and respond. The idea with the site is to spend some time collecting job listings each day without spending a lot of time reviewing them, and definitely not spending time responding. Then, to spend time reviewing listings further and taking the time to send a proper cover letter and resume. Separating these different processes and being able to keep track of which stage each job opportunity was in really helped me feel more in control and made me feel like I was actually making progress, because I could see what I'd gotten done. In the end that's what I hope it does for other people - help them with their job search on a practical level, but also help in some way to keep people motivated, because looking for jobs can really suck :D

hackoder 17y ago
Initial impressions are good. Very clean, intuitive, and useful. You could add more value in the cover letter and interview reminder section, and also add in a resume section. For example, in the interview section a person could create a list of stuff they need to look at or study, and then check them off as they're finished. Similarly, you could create and save different cover letter and resumes. A user could use special syntax like [[Edit company name]] to just edit the relevant parts and send the resumes off. I can see this working with a very cheap subscription model ($1-2/month) if there are more features. I dont think have you have enough to sell it right now, since most job sites have their own job tracking system.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Thanks for your suggestions. With resumes, I feel like there are a few good web sites out there already. For example, I use emurse.com which is free and does everything I could want it to. I really like your idea about having multiple cover letters and placeholders in the cover letters. Something like that would have been helpful for me so I could see quickly which parts I needed to change. It would also be fun to code up an interface for it. On the money side, I was thinking a one-time payment of around $8 would allow use of the site for up to a year. A subscription model sounds good too, and probably the best thing is just to test.
  - gcheong 17y ago
    The separate slots for resumes is a good idea. I'd like to track what resume version I sent where. I think a one-time payment for access sounds like a good idea. Or maybe even just a donation button for now? The argument there is that people who find jobs might be willing to donate quite a bit more and also you never know when you'll need the site again so having the information readily available would be good.
  - hcho 17y ago
    Don't put a fixed price, allow users to pay what the site's worth to them. You can go freemium route. Providing SMS and/or e-mail based reminder service to your paying customers only springs to mind.
- andyjdavis 17y ago
  I don't think it would work at pricing like that. I'm guessing this is something people will only use for a month or two (until they get a job). However you price it factor in that you may only retain customers for 2ish months. What about adding interview email reminders? send me an email 24 and maybe 3 hours before I have an interview to make sure I haven't forgotten it.
coglethorpe 17y ago
I like the clean design. I also like the concept. I had done something similar with pen and paper during my searches, but it never quite kept me up with who I had talked to and when. Is there a feature to remind the job seeker of upcoming interviews? I'm not sure about the "selling" of the site right off the bat. This is a good niche to be in for revenue. Possibly you can match seekers with jobs proactively, let contextually relevant ads and targeted banners serve up high-paying clicks and impressions. Then find a way to charge for "premium" services. What language/framework did you use to create the site?
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  In a way, there is a feature to remind the job seeker of upcoming interviews. You can associate a date with a job opportunity's next action, then subscribe to the ical feed of all your next actions. One thing that would really feel more confident about holding onto the site and making money with it would be to have some kind of marketing plan. Right now I'm just contacting bloggers, and I'm not sure how far that will get me. I used Ruby on Rails to create the site and jquery for the front end.
ashishk 17y ago
Build traffic. Then add a job board. Companies pay low 4-figure referral fees all the time. You could also just charge for ad spots.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. One concern I had with the job board is that the web site isn't targeted at a specific job domain. I haven't done the research yet to see if there's a job board that would make sense for people looking for jobs in many different fields.
- cninja 17y ago
  An alternative revenue stream is affiliate programs some of the big job boards offer. Most pay on a per applicant basis.
rgoddard 17y ago
The point at which you create real value is when a person is offered and accepts a job. Trying to charge people just to use the service while they are looking probably won't work since if they are out of a job paying for a service might not seem like a good idea. Although somebody looking for a new job while currently employed, might be willing to pay for some extra features. This gives me four ideas where to collect money. For the person without a job looking you can collect money from them after they found a job with a donate feature, with ads - seeing as though they are looking for jobs this can lead to highly relevant ads, or with offering them continued access to special features after they have found a job which could come in handy later on. For a person currently employed they might be willing to pay for some premium features TBD. Or as others have said with a job board that companies pay to post to, or some affiliate program with other job boards - could be related to you advertising scheme. So a number of good possibilities there.
- nonrecursive 17y ago
  Thanks for your suggestions.

hackoder 17y ago

Initial impressions are good. Very clean, intuitive, and useful. You could add more value in the cover letter and interview reminder section, and also add in a resume section. For example, in the interview section a person could create a list of stuff they need to look at or study, and then check them off as they're finished. Similarly, you could create and save different cover letter and resumes. A user could use special syntax like [[Edit company name]] to just edit the relevant parts and send the resumes off. I can see this working with a very cheap subscription model ($1-2/month) if there are more features. I dont think have you have enough to sell it right now, since most job sites have their own job tracking system.

nonrecursive 17y ago
Thanks for your suggestions. With resumes, I feel like there are a few good web sites out there already. For example, I use emurse.com which is free and does everything I could want it to. I really like your idea about having multiple cover letters and placeholders in the cover letters. Something like that would have been helpful for me so I could see quickly which parts I needed to change. It would also be fun to code up an interface for it. On the money side, I was thinking a one-time payment of around $8 would allow use of the site for up to a year. A subscription model sounds good too, and probably the best thing is just to test.
- gcheong 17y ago
  The separate slots for resumes is a good idea. I'd like to track what resume version I sent where. I think a one-time payment for access sounds like a good idea. Or maybe even just a donation button for now? The argument there is that people who find jobs might be willing to donate quite a bit more and also you never know when you'll need the site again so having the information readily available would be good.
- hcho 17y ago
  Don't put a fixed price, allow users to pay what the site's worth to them. You can go freemium route. Providing SMS and/or e-mail based reminder service to your paying customers only springs to mind.
andyjdavis 17y ago
I don't think it would work at pricing like that. I'm guessing this is something people will only use for a month or two (until they get a job). However you price it factor in that you may only retain customers for 2ish months. What about adding interview email reminders? send me an email 24 and maybe 3 hours before I have an interview to make sure I haven't forgotten it.

coglethorpe 17y ago

I like the clean design. I also like the concept. I had done something similar with pen and paper during my searches, but it never quite kept me up with who I had talked to and when. Is there a feature to remind the job seeker of upcoming interviews? I'm not sure about the "selling" of the site right off the bat. This is a good niche to be in for revenue. Possibly you can match seekers with jobs proactively, let contextually relevant ads and targeted banners serve up high-paying clicks and impressions. Then find a way to charge for "premium" services. What language/framework did you use to create the site?

nonrecursive 17y ago
In a way, there is a feature to remind the job seeker of upcoming interviews. You can associate a date with a job opportunity's next action, then subscribe to the ical feed of all your next actions. One thing that would really feel more confident about holding onto the site and making money with it would be to have some kind of marketing plan. Right now I'm just contacting bloggers, and I'm not sure how far that will get me. I used Ruby on Rails to create the site and jquery for the front end.

ashishk 17y ago

Build traffic. Then add a job board. Companies pay low 4-figure referral fees all the time. You could also just charge for ad spots.

nonrecursive 17y ago
Thanks for the suggestion. One concern I had with the job board is that the web site isn't targeted at a specific job domain. I haven't done the research yet to see if there's a job board that would make sense for people looking for jobs in many different fields.
cninja 17y ago
An alternative revenue stream is affiliate programs some of the big job boards offer. Most pay on a per applicant basis.

rgoddard 17y ago

The point at which you create real value is when a person is offered and accepts a job. Trying to charge people just to use the service while they are looking probably won't work since if they are out of a job paying for a service might not seem like a good idea. Although somebody looking for a new job while currently employed, might be willing to pay for some extra features. This gives me four ideas where to collect money. For the person without a job looking you can collect money from them after they found a job with a donate feature, with ads - seeing as though they are looking for jobs this can lead to highly relevant ads, or with offering them continued access to special features after they have found a job which could come in handy later on. For a person currently employed they might be willing to pay for some premium features TBD. Or as others have said with a job board that companies pay to post to, or some affiliate program with other job boards - could be related to you advertising scheme. So a number of good possibilities there.

nonrecursive 17y ago
Thanks for your suggestions.