Building a Job Tracker SaaS — looking for feedback
Hey Indie Hackers,
I’ve been building a simple job tracker because I found it hard to keep track of applications, follow-ups, and responses.
Right now it lets you:
- Save and manage applications
- Track statuses (applied, interview, offer, rejected)
- Keep everything in one place
It’s still very early and basic.
👉 I’m curious — how are you currently tracking your job applications?
Spreadsheet? Notion? Something else?
Would love to understand what actually works for people.
You can try it here:
Hey Anson, going to give you some brutal but honest feedback here!
First, clean up the landing page ASAP, you still have template placeholder text like "Clear problem statement" live on the site, which makes it look unfinished.
To answer your question, most people just use a free Notion or Google Sheets template, and that's your biggest hurdle right now. You're building a vitamin, not a painkiller; job seekers don't want to do more manual data entry, they just want to get hired. Unless you build a feature that actually does the heavy lifting for them (like AI auto-filling applications), it's going to be nearly impossible to get unemployed people to pay for this over a free spreadsheet. :)
Thanks for the honest feedback — really appreciate it.
You’re absolutely right about the landing page, I missed that placeholder text and I’ll clean that up ASAP.
Also agree with your point on spreadsheets/Notion — that’s exactly what I’m seeing too. Right now this is definitely a simpler “manual tracking” tool, so I’m trying to understand where it actually adds value (if at all).
The “doing the work for users” part is something I’ve been thinking about — especially around reducing manual entry or making follow-ups easier.
Out of curiosity — have you seen any tools that actually solved this well, or is everyone still just sticking with spreadsheets?
Ansonpjp — the "applied, interview, offer, rejected" status flow is the right backbone, but the real pain in job tracking isn't storage, it's the follow-up gap. People drop apps into a spreadsheet and then forget which ones to nudge after 7 days.
A few thoughts:
The wedge — most people use Notion or a Google Sheet not because it's good, but because it's free and already open. To beat that, you need one thing they can't do easily. Auto follow-up reminders based on status + days elapsed would be that thing.
Discovery question — instead of asking "how do you track," ask "what's the last application you forgot to follow up on?" You'll get way more honest answers about the real pain.
Distribution — r/jobs, r/cscareerquestions, and LinkedIn job-seeker groups. Post your own tracker screenshot with lessons learned, not a product link.
Early and basic is fine — just make sure the one job it does, it does sharper than a spreadsheet.
Thanks, this is really useful feedback.
I agree — the more I work on this, the more I realise the real problem is not just storing applications. It’s the follow-up gap.
A spreadsheet is fine for recording jobs, but it doesn’t actively remind you what needs attention. That’s where I’m trying to make the product sharper: follow-ups due, cold applications, and simple next actions based on status and days elapsed.
Also really like your discovery question. “What’s the last application you forgot to follow up on?” is much better than asking how people track jobs. I’ll use that in future posts because it gets closer to the real pain.
And yes, I’ll focus more on sharing lessons/screenshots rather than just dropping the product link.
Appreciate this — it gives me a clearer direction for the MVP.
Even this early, I would not keep it as one generic job tracker page. The person leaving spreadsheets, the person missing follow-ups, and the person juggling interviews are arriving with different questions.
I’d make a small cluster: spreadsheet alternative, follow-up reminder tracker, interview pipeline tracker, and job search organizer for heavy applicants. That gives you clearer feedback because each visitor lands on the exact use case they care about.
For context, I'm building Clustra which does this automatically and happy to generate a free example for your product if useful: clustra[dot]nanocorp[dot]app
This is a really interesting point — I hadn’t thought about splitting it into use-case focused pages this early.
Right now everything is bundled into a single “job tracker” idea, but what you’re saying makes sense — different users are coming in with different problems (follow-ups vs interviews vs general tracking), and I’m probably being too generic.
I like the idea of testing smaller, focused entry points to see which one actually resonates most.
Also Clustra sounds interesting — would be great to see an example for this, happy to take a look.
This is a pretty neat tool actually. I don't you but I'm proud of you! Lol I like what your doing here. I'm new to the game as well so from one new start up to another, don't give up.. you've got something pretty cool going on
Haha thank you, really appreciate that — means a lot, especially at this early stage.
Still figuring things out and trying to shape it based on feedback, but comments like this definitely help keep the motivation up.
Good luck with your startup as well — would love to hear what you’re building!
Spreadsheet honestly — but the problem is it breaks down fast once you're applying to 20+ places. The status tracking alone would've saved me a lot of confusion. Curious whether you're planning email reminders for follow-ups, that's the thing spreadsheets can't do at all.
That’s really helpful to hear — especially the point about things breaking down after 20+ applications. That’s exactly the situation I’m trying to solve.
And yeah, follow-ups/reminders are something I’m actively thinking about, since that seems to be one of the biggest gaps with spreadsheets.
Out of curiosity — how were you managing follow-ups before? Just manually checking your sheet or setting reminders somewhere else?
Building a dedicated tracker definitely beats getting lost in a messy spreadsheet, Anson! Figuring out exactly which niche of job seekers is actively searching for a new tool instead of just defaulting to Notion is usually the hardest part. To skip that guesswork, we actually built an AI agent that automatically validates those exact global market gaps for you before you even write a single line of code. Great start on the MVP!
Appreciate that, thank you!
Yeah, the niche part is definitely the hardest — I’m starting to realise “job tracker” is too broad, so I’m trying to narrow it down based on real feedback instead of guessing.
Right now I’m leaning towards people who are applying to a lot of roles and struggling with follow-ups, since that seems to come up repeatedly.
The AI validation idea sounds interesting as well — curious how you’re identifying those gaps in practice?
Our agent acts like a digital detective by scraping Reddit threads and App Store reviews to find exactly where big competitors are failing their users.
It converts those specific complaints into a structured PRD and MVP roadmap so you are solving a proven pain point rather than a hypothetical one.
Basing your niche on recorded user frustration is much safer than relying on a shower thought.
Is the "follow-up struggle" you found mostly about remembering the date or the friction of writing the message?
That makes sense — using actual complaints from Reddit/App Store reviews sounds like a much better signal than guessing.
From what I’ve seen so far, the follow-up struggle seems to be mostly about remembering the date and staying organised.
People apply through LinkedIn, company websites, recruiters, and emails, and after a few days it becomes messy to remember:
• where they applied
• when they applied
• whether they already followed up
• what stage the application is in
Writing the follow-up message is also a problem, but I think that comes slightly later. If users don’t even remember when to follow up, they never reach the writing stage.
So for the MVP I’m focusing on simple tracking + reminders first, then maybe follow-up templates or AI-generated messages later.
Curious — when your agent finds these complaints, does it also show how often the same pain point appears across different platforms?
Spotting the same fire on three different platforms is the ultimate proof that you should build a fire extinguisher. The agent groups those recurring pains so you can see which problems are actually shouting for a solution. It is much safer to build for a crowd of unhappy users than a single loud voice. Focusing on the organization headache first is a solid way to save your users from mental burnout.
Which platform do you think is the messiest for people to keep track of?
Hey, nice work on this am currently running AnyAI Hub- a marketplace built just for you vertical AI tools like yours
Want to list it here? first 6 months are free, no fees and ill set the listing myself up for you.
Want me to send to you the link to officially join ?
Hey, thanks for reaching out — appreciate the offer!
That sounds interesting, especially since I’m still in the early stage and trying to get a bit more visibility.
Would be great if you could share the link and a bit more detail on how the marketplace works and the kind of audience it has.
“Job tracker” is the feature.
The real problem is application chaos, missed follow-ups, and decision fatigue.
That’s the product people actually pay to fix.
Right now this is competing with Notion, Sheets, Teal, Huntr, and every other tracker on utility alone.
That’s a hard place to win unless the product becomes meaningfully better at reducing search fatigue, not just logging applications.
And if you keep building it, the naming should evolve too.
Something like Lyriso.com gives this much more room to become a real career product instead of staying boxed in as another generic tracker.
This is a really valuable perspective — especially the distinction between “job tracker” as a feature vs the actual problem being application chaos and missed follow-ups.
That’s something I’m starting to see more clearly from all the feedback — just logging applications isn’t enough if it doesn’t reduce the mental load during a job search.
I like the idea of thinking beyond a generic tracker and focusing more on reducing that decision fatigue over time.
Also interesting point on naming — I hadn’t considered that yet, but it makes sense if the product direction expands beyond just tracking.
Curious in your view — what would make something feel like it’s actually reducing “search fatigue” vs just organizing it?
The difference is whether the product just stores decisions or removes decisions.
A tracker says:
here are all your applications
A real search-fatigue product says:
this is what matters now
this one needs follow-up
this one is going cold
this company is worth prioritizing
stop thinking about these 12 for now
That’s the shift.
Less logging.
More guidance.
If the product moves in that direction, the name matters more because it stops being a tracker and starts becoming the layer someone trusts during a stressful career transition.
That’s why I mentioned Lyriso.
It feels more like a calm career/workflow product than another job tracking utility.
This is really helpful — especially the idea that the product should remove decisions, not just store them.
I can see the difference now. A basic tracker only shows users everything they have applied for, but that still leaves them with the stress of figuring out what matters next.
The direction I want to move toward is exactly what you described:
That feels much closer to solving the actual job-search stress than just building another application list.
I also understand your naming point better now. If the product becomes more of a career workflow / decision layer, then “Job Tracker” may be too limited. Lyriso is interesting because it gives the product more room to grow beyond tracking.
Really appreciate this — it gives me a much clearer product direction: less logging, more guidance.
Exactly. Less logging, more guidance is the right direction.
That is where the product starts becoming something people rely on during a stressful process, not just another place to store applications.
And that is why the name matters more as the product sharpens.
Just to be transparent, I own both Xevoa.com and Lyriso.com.
I mentioned Xevoa in the other thread because it fits the more software-native “decision layer” direction.
For this calmer career workflow angle, Lyriso may actually fit better.
It feels more human, less technical, and less boxed into utility software.
So the question is really what direction you want the product to feel like:
Xevoa if it becomes a sharper workflow system.
Lyriso if it becomes a calmer career guidance layer.
Congrats on putting this out there, Anson!
I actually ran your URL through my tool to find the 'Trust Leaks.' Since you're targeting job seekers, data trust is everything.
I generated a quick audit for you here:
🔗 https://roastmylanding.vercel.app/roast/estLUZD-
The main heading 'Stop losing track of job applications across tabs and spreadsheets' is descriptive but not benefit-driven. It focuses on the problem, not the solution's outcome.
I'm currently offering a 50% discount (Code: TRUSTLEAK50) if you want the full 10-point roadmap to fix the conversion gaps. Keep building! 🚀
Thanks for taking the time to run that audit — appreciate you sharing it.
That’s a good point on the headline. I’ve been focusing more on describing the problem, but I can see how shifting it towards a clearer outcome/benefit would make it stronger.
I’ll go through the audit and see what improvements I can apply from it.
Out of curiosity — from what you’ve seen, what kind of headline usually works best for early-stage tools like this?
Great question. For early-stage tools like a Job Tracker, founders often get stuck in "feature-speak" (what it does) instead of "benefit-speak" (what the user gets).
Two frameworks that usually win:
The 'Superpower' Headline: [Desired Outcome] in [Timeframe/Effort].
Ex: "Land your next role 2x faster by never missing a follow-up."
The 'Comparison' Headline: Like [Famous Tool], but built for [Specific Niche].
Ex: "The CRM for job seekers. Because spreadsheets aren't built for hiring cycles.