Remoteur is a bi-weekly newsletter of remote jobs for pros based in Europe. This is the story of how I built and launched it with €53 and no existing audience.

Idea

Remote job boards are mostly US-centric, how about Europe?

My research on Google Trends, Google Search (specifically in “Searches related to remote jobs”), Twitter, Quora and Hacker News convinced me to build an MVP. 

At first I thought at another job board, then I decided for something quicker and easier to launch: a newsletter.

Name

I needed a short, meaningful and memorable name: the Big Tuts experiment (some kind of “Quora meets Kickstarter” short-lived platform I launched with Massimiliano and Adriano two years ago) made me extra cautious with cheeky names, so after combining “remote” with “Europe” I came up with an innocent and french flavored “Remoteur”.

Domain, Twitter, Revue and logo

After I recovered from the surprise of finding that remoteur.com was available, I bought a hosting plan for just €29 and opened an account on Twitter and Revue.

I chose Revue over Mailchimp & Co for its simplicity and focus on community: I was pretty sure they would help me to increase my newsletter visibility. And last but not least, I found a coupon code to get 3 months of the Pro plan for free.

Next step: the logo. I’m not a graphic designer, so I downloaded a free ready-to-go logo from logodust.com, courtesy of Fairpixels.

Downloaded from logodust.com  -  Free & open sourced logos

Value proposition

After setting up my custom domain and having made sure the DNS records were updated, I wrote this value proposition:

“Remote jobs in Europe delivered to your inbox bi-weekly. First issue goes out July 4”

I chose and announced a close date for two reasons:

  • to make a public commitment and launch without second thoughts;
  • to instill a bit of fear of missing out something “real”. First issue would be sent at the latest within four days.
1 subscriber (me) and 0 issues: not exactly social proof numbers

Spreading the word

Designer News

My post on Designer News got 6 upvotes, no comments and a tweet to their 14K followers.

But here’s the best thing: the lack of competition - I chose to post on Friday, the least competitive workday - allowed me to stay on the Designer News front page for the entire weekend.

Reddit

My post on Reddit was basically ignored (9 views) by the 46K readers of the Digital Nomad subreddit. With 123 views and 4 upvotes the same post on the SideProject subreddit (18K readers) went slightly better. 

Quora

I found these related questions on Quora:

  • What are the best ways to search for a remote job in engineering/development within Europe?
  • What are the best places to find remote jobs in Europe?
  • Can you suggest a remote or flexible jobs portal in Europe?
  • What are the best free job posting sites in Europe?

I answered with a quick post been viewed 1.5K+ times so far:

Check out a free bi-weekly newsletter called Remoteur: every other Tuesday I go on a treasure hunt and share some of the best jobs for Europe-based remote workers

Twitter and Slack

I retweeted first Remoteur’s tweet to my 600+ followers and posted the link on Unicorn Think Tank, a Slack community of CRO and marketing experts I joined in May, adding this message:

Hey guys! I’m launching Remoteur, a free bi-weekly newsletter with remote jobs for pros based in Europe. First issue goes out July 4: it would be great if you could subscribe, share and/or show some love. Thanks!

Hacker News

My post on Hacker News got 3 upvotes and no comments. As for Reddit, I’m not involved in that community, so I didn’t expect to get much traction.

Cold messages

I sent a cold email to Jane Portman and a similar DM on Twitter to Heidi Pun, two european pros I chatted with on Product Hunt:

Hi Jane/Heidi, 

I hope everything is fine!

 

Maybe you remember me as the maker of Big Tuts on Product Hunt. By the way, I’m launching Remoteur, a free bi-weekly newsletter with remote jobs for pros based in Europe. First issue goes out tomorrow, it would be great if you could show some love.


Here’s a handy pre-populated Tweet to help me spread the word: https://ctt.ec/K6GEo

Thanks! :)

Fun fact: they both tweeted!

First issue

Five days later at 11am CEST I sent the first issue to 224 subscribers, here are the (very good, according to Mailchimp and Upstart.me) stats:

  • 48,66% opened
  • 66,97% clicked
  • 0 unsubscribed
Remoteur's first issue: 20 jobs every 2 weeks seem to be a good number

Spreading the word (again)

Another cold message

Less than two hours after sending the first issue I wrote a cold email to Revue, basically asking to be featured in their gallery of hottest newsletters:

Hi guys, what a breeze! Just sent out to 224 subscribers the first issue of Remoteur (remote jobs in Europe). It would be an honor to be featured in your gallery, any chance?

Revue’s founder Martijn de Kuijper replied a week later:

Hey Silvio, thanks for reaching out! I just added your newsletter to our Explore page!

Facebook

I opened a Facebook page just to spend €20 for this ad:

My target audience was 18-45 aged people living in Europe and matching (at least) one of the following:

  • Interests
    Digital nomad, Smashing Magazine, Web developer, Web design, Marketing, Growth hacking or Copywriting
  • Behaviors
    Small business owners
  • Employers
    Work from home
  • Job title
    Search Engine Optimizer (SEO)
  • Life Event
    Away from hometown

The results? 27.747 impressions, 521 clicks and less than 20 newsletter subscribers. I’m sure there is considerable room for improvement. 

I'll need: 

  • a more persuasive copy (“Next issue goes out July 18” on a July 6 post is not the best use of the urgency/scarcity principle); 
  • an eye-catching image;
  • a book/course on the subject (“Facebook Ads Manual” by Mojca Marš seems to be a legitimate candidate, but I'm open to suggestions).

Product Hunt (asking for help)

Product Hunt is an integral part of launching a new product these days: mindful of the unsuccessful launch of Contento (a now-defunct Big Tuts pivot), I wanted to ask someone with a larger followership - and able to submit products directly, without having to go through the review process - to post Remoteur for me.

I found out that Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré, who is - among many other things - moderator at PH, has a Submit a product for review for Product Hunt form on her site.

Here’s what I wrote, asking to be posted the following Friday:

Hi Nichole, 

as you surely know remote job boards are mostly US-centric. That’s why I decided to go on a treasure hunt every two weeks and share some of the best jobs specifically for Europe-based remote workers. 

 

Launched 10 days ago, first issue went out to 224 subscribers on July 4, next one is scheduled for July 18. Remoteur has already been on Designer News front page, being featured on PH would be a blessing :) 

Thanks for your time!

She replied a few hours later:

Hi, I’d be happy to post this product for you on Friday.

That’s me after Nichole’s email

Product Hunt (launch day)

The Product Hunt leaderboard resets every day at 12:01am Pacific. So if you want to get the best initial traction you should submit you product early in the morning, and that’s exactly what Nichole did: 

producthunt.com/posts/remoteur

I tagged the Product Hunt post with “Hiring and Recruiting”, “Nomad Lifestyle”, “Email Newsletters”, “Tech” and “Website” to get a chance to appear as an alternative of famous remote job boards like We Work Remotely or Remote | OK, then I added a couple of screenshots and wrote a greeting comment.

I asked to be included into the PH collection “Find a Remote Job”, but I was late to the party: “Collections are closed” Jake Crump of the PH community team told me, “but we do encourage you to make your own and promote it! Get creative, PH retweets cool collections”. Anyway, being included in Raffaele Gaito’s Italian Products collection has at least cheered me up a bit.

At 1pm CEST I reluctantly sent an email with no value for my 330 subscribers to celebrate the Product Hunt launch, trying to be extra cautious not to directly ask for upvotes (it’s against PH netiquette).

Here are the stats:

  • 52,73% opened
  • 18,97% clicked (29 clicks on the Product Hunt image link)
  • 5 unsubscribed

I published a post on Facebook and spent €4 to promote it: my target audience was 18–40 aged people living in Europe and interested in Product Hunt. The results? 741 impressions and 12 clicks.

Unfortunately Remoteur has been “only” the 8th most upvoted product of the day, so I couldn’t get extra visibility with PH newsletters: a product has to be in the top 5 for the daily version, top 6 for the weekly one.

By the way, Remoteur subscribers doubled thanks to Product Hunt (and PH upvotes doubled since launch day)!

What I've experimented

  • I changed the mail subject from a generic “Remote jobs in Europe — Issue #6” to a more specific (and hopefully catchy) “#6: Remote positions at Github, Jungle Scout, Super Spicy Media and others”;
  • I advanced the idea of a giveaway to get people to tweet about Remoteur;
  • Remoteur subscribers and I are in the same niche, so I thought it would be a good idea to share the books I’m reading (even better with a coupon code);
  • Along with this I edited the welcome message from Revue’s default:

Thank you for subscribing to Remoteur! 

 

You will receive updates straight to your inbox, but you can also check out the profile page for past and future issues. 

 

Oh by the way, I wouldn’t mind if you gave my digest some love through Twitter or Facebook :-)

To this one (hopefully more personal):

Hooray, you’re subscribed to Remoteur! You’ll receive updates straight to your inbox, but you can also check out remoteur.com for past issues. 

Thanks again for subscribing, much appreciated. I send every other Tuesday, so look for the next issue very soon. 


Best from Italy, 

Silvio 

 

P.S. Here’s a handy pre-populated tweet to help you spread the word about Remoteur :)

Recently I’ve edited the P.S. part, mentioning the giveaway:

P.S. I'm planning to do a little giveaway once we cross the 1000 subscribers line, share Remoteur for a chance to win 3 business books :)

  • Finally, I changed the “Join me in following this newsletter? Remoteur http://www.remoteur.com” pre-populated tweet into “Join me in following Remoteur, a newsletter of #remotejobs in Europe http://www.remoteur.com” and then “Subscribe to Remoteur newsletter and RT for a chance to win 3 business books http://www.remoteur.com #remotejobs #giveaway”.

What's/went wrong

Slow growth

With about 3 new emails per day, subscriber growth has been pretty slow but steady since the initial launch spike. Open and click rates are decreasing, but I guess it’s a normal physiological response as the subscribers increase.

Poor Google ranking

Remoteur’s WooRank score is only 56.1, so there’s considerable room for improvement. But I’ll have to replace Revue’s landing page with a custom one.

Few shares/RTs

Most of the companies I mention on Facebook and Twitter ignore “their” post: honestly, I would have expected more shares/retweets. Maybe I could make my posts more “visual” with tools like Canva or Buffer's Pablo, but I’m afraid it would take too long (and Buffer's inability to tag Facebook pages is already killing me).

Subscribers too rarely tweet, despite the giveaway and the pre-populated tweet.

Automated DM on Twitter

I set up Crowdfire to automatically send a direct message to each new follower of my personal profile on Twitter: “Hi there, thanks for the follow! Interested in getting a bi-weekly digest of remote jobs in Europe? Subscribe for free: remoteur.com”.

I’m an introvert and I easily (and erroneously) feel guilty for being too pushy, but this time I knew I wasn’t wrong: one week later one follower replied with “Already did that organically, stop automating everything man”. As I should have imagined, people discover my profile from Remoteur, not viceversa.

No more annoying and useless automated DMs from me, I promise!

What’s next

Here’s what I’m going to do in the short term:

  • a book giveaway to celebrate 1K subscribers;
  • a custom landing page to get 100% control and overcome Revue limitations in terms of SEO, analytics and unfurling (the way Remoteur previews look on social media and messaging platforms);
  • I’ll consider advertising on Facebook (again) and/or sponsoring an email newsletter relevant to Remoteur’s niche;
  • I’ll try to promote Remoteur and participate regularly in 1-5 targeted Facebook groups I’ve joined recently.

What’s my monetization plan

In order of preference, here are the different options I’m thinking about to make Remoteur a sustainable project:

  • One slot with a clear and relevant sponsor for each issue (e.g. Offscreen Dispatch);
  • Charging companies for promoting their open positions;
  • Charging subscribers with a small monthly fee for a premium version, like Owen Williams is doing with re:Charged (Revue is working on this feature, as far as I know);
  • Affiliate links;
  • Turning Remoteur into another job board (that’s a very long shot).

But first I’ve to at least double my subscriber base. 

Thanks for reading!

I’d love to hear your thoughts, please share your comments below. And if you’re a remote worker based in Europe, check out remoteur.com

Originally published on Hacker Noon on September 12, 2017