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Need feedback on a branding and launch strategy

By ankmav
May 8, 2017

I am building a niche job board which will let startups, companies and recruiters post their openings and get applications from relevant talent interested in that niche sector. I feel building a brand around the job board is very important for it to gain significant traction. However, this is my first side project and I am totally new to branding and I am looking for some advise from experienced people in this community. This is how I am currently thinking about -

Branding

  1. Design of the site specifically oriented for the niche
  2. Write 3-4 blog posts on the site talking recent trends in the niche and share them in various places

Launching

  1. Make the job board live and add ~50 listings manually for free to start with. Also let those companies know that their job has been added for free. (1 week)
  2. For the next 2 weeks keep adding 10 jobs manually per day and in parallel publicise the job board on relevant sites(Quora, LinkedIn, Reddit, HN) (2 weeks)
  3. Also add 3-4 blog posts and post them in relevant places. The idea of (2) and (3) is to get some numbers like subscribed users & website hits that job posters will look for validation. (2 weeks)
  4. Mail personally to startups, companies, recruiters in the niche to add jobs for free and observe the response. (2 weeks)
  5. Start charging for posting a job once the site has got some momentum after (1) to (3) and the response from (4) is good. (1 week)

What more or different things can I can do improve Branding and Launch?

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    This comment was deleted 7 years ago

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    9 years ago
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      Hi Thomas,

      "Job" - Permanent, full-time job. Could be on-site as well as Remote.

      I am targeting one of the industry sector that is new and trending at the moment, not a single skillset but all the different roles in that industry. Geography is global, but 90% of the target companies in this industry will be in 6-7 cities across the world.

      ankmav's avatar ankmav
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      9 years ago
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        9 years ago
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          Pure guess: imagine a job board for people working in Machine Learning or more specifically Deep Learning. This is a trendy niche and such a job board will make sense.

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          9 years ago
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            9 years ago
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              Hi thomasm1964, you are right about me putting the cart before the horse.
              For a new project like this to gain traction, it's important to focus on a very small niche of customers initially and make sure that the product is what they want rather than targeting everyone.

              In the case of a job board, the dimensions I can think of are -

              1. Niche - Sector/Target Demography(oldgeekjobs.com)/Job type(eg: remote)
              2. Geography
              3. Skillsets

              In my case -

              1. Niche - When I posted this question, I had a bigger niche in mind. However, now I am making it more specific by choosing a much smaller subset of that sector which is very new, digital and growing.
              2. Geography - Global. The number of target companies will still be very low(~500-1000) because of point 1.
              3. Skillsets - Engineering & Product mainly. Sales and Marketing to some extent. Apologies for not making clear earlier that it won't be the actual jobs like office manager, delivery driver, logistic manager etc. This is again partly because of the nature of the niche itself.

              To answer your questions -
              1 & 2. With the earlier niche I had in mind, which was bigger and not very focused, I didn't have a better proposition. Your question made me re-evaluate my niche and the new sector is very small as of now and no special job boards exist for it yet.

              3 & 4. Initially the board will have only features for recruiter side. Like (remoteok.io). Candidates will be redirected to company's careers page to apply for the job.

              ankmav's avatar ankmav
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              9 years ago
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                This comment was deleted 7 years ago

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                9 years ago
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                  Thanks! It sure did.

                  ankmav's avatar ankmav
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                  9 years ago
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