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12 Comments

Trying to make money before I make money

Hi all,

I am the founder of Remotextra , a remote developer job board with transparent salaries.

I launched over a month ago, and while I have some traffic (around 4k monthly users) employers still haven't paid for posts so I am looking for other ways to monetize my job board.

I tried to:

  • Partner with resume writing services.
  • Partner with interview coaching services.
  • Partner with job backfill providers.

The plan is to place a banner with an affiliate link to their site, but unfortunately none of them wanted to make a partnership with me. They didn't give any reason but I assume it is because Remotextra is still a relatively small job board.

I am now looking into AdSense, and maybe selling some space for banners, but I don't really want to spam the website with ads.

What about you Indiehackers, do you have any experience with these "side-monetizing" models?

Cheers,
Daniel

  1. 4

    Hey Daniel -- what's your pitch to employers?

    I've purchased job listings as an employer. Getting more applicants was never the problem we were trying to solve. We were drowning in applications. There were two reasons we paid for job listings:

    1. Access to hard-to-reach candidates -- e.g. for niche roles or candidates from under-represented groups (e.g. hiretechladies.com)
    2. Access to highly-qualified candidates -- e.g. listings on platforms like LinkedIn that can funnel good matches

    My hunch is that you'll want to offer access to a specific high-demand type of candidate if you're going to monetize employers.

    1. 1

      Hey,

      super useful insight, thanks a lot, I will definitely think about your points.

      1. 2

        I'm happy to talk or answer questions via email if it'd be helpful. I've done a ton of hiring and been on the receiving end of plenty of job board pitches... and I've been in your shoes, too, and know that customer discovery is tough :) Contact info's in my profile -- feel free to reach out.

        1. 1

          Wow, appreciate it man, cheers :)

  2. 1

    How about selling some upsells for job posts, similar to how remoteok.io does it?

    Like being able to color the ad so its stands out from other, or pinning it to the top for a certain amount of time.

  3. 1

    I am working on a smiliar product.
    What about if employer have to pay for their job offerings on your webpage. I would contact some companies directly and offer them such a service

  4. 1

    I launched over a month ago, and while I have some traffic (around 4k monthly users) employers still haven't paid for posts so I am looking for other ways to monetize my job board.

    4K/month traffic is pretty good for the start Daniel. I am curious what you did so far to attract employers to post a job on our website?

    1. 1

      Hey Marty,

      Well I have not targeted employers directly so far. I am thinking of cold emailing a bunch of remote companies with 50% off coupons.

      1. 2

        I see, I think at the beginning it will be hard to get employers to post on your job board just by themselves since your job board does not have a strong brand.

        But at the end of the day, employers post not because the job board is popular or no but they post to get qualified applicants. And this should be your main pitch. If I was you, I would measure via analytics how many "apply" clicks a job gets on your job board and will include that in my cold emails.

        So to highlight the above point

        • on your home page you can have "Reach out to 5000 Remote developers" (I think 5000 is a little small yet but can work since your pricing is not too big)
        • On your post job page I'll include: "Average job posting gets around 50+ [Apply] clicks" (This is an important number and gives an idea to employers how many applicants they can receive for the given posting price. For example remote ok guaranties 200+ clicks - https://remoteok.io/hire-remotely)
        • In your cold email also you can include these 2 numbers.
        1. 1

          Thanks for the great advice, I will definitely implement these. Cheers man!

  5. 1

    Have you looked at affiliate programs offered by the big job posting companies? (for example - https://www.ziprecruiter.com/partner)? I've never run a job board, but I think that a common monetization strategy is to refer applicants through these affiliate programs.

    1. 1

      Hey!
      Thanks for the suggestion. I tried but unfortunately there were no replies.

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