38
65 Comments

Passed $7k ๐Ÿ’ต in a month with my boring directory of job boards

It all started by chance when StackOverflow Jobs shut down

I learned about the news thanks to a Pieter Levels's tweet

Folks were asking about alternatives, so in 5 hours built a quick and ugly directory of job boards.

Then, posted under his tweet, he liked it and RTd, there were a lot of interest from job board founders and the traction started

I never though about monetizing but 2 months after launching it, Pieter sent me a DM saying that I should charge job boards to get listed and that I should try different tiers.

So I added paid plans:

  • Sticky ๐Ÿ“Œ
  • Highlight โญ
  • Custom Color ๐ŸŸข

Also, sponsored slots:

  • Gold ๐Ÿฅ‡
  • Silver ๐Ÿฅˆ
  • Bronze ๐Ÿฅ‰

I posted on Twitter and literally minutes later the first sponsor, "4 day week" job board acquired the Gold slot

A bit later the Silver one and the next morning the Bronze, it was a blast ๐Ÿฅณ

Months later, a company (a job board software) reached out wanting to advertise, so I added two ad slots at the top of the website at $500 each

I kept improving it and building in public.

Added a meta feature, so, fetch jobs from job board with API or RSS feed, and then:

  • List jobs within each job board listing
  • List jobs in each job category page
  • Crossposts on different channels (Telegram 7.3k members, Subreddit 7.3k members)

There are 419 job board listed and 196 in the waiting list, known folks in the industry recommend JobBoardSearch ๐Ÿ”Žto promote their job boards.

A couple of weeks ago closed the best ad deal ever with an AI resumes company.

Last week lauched the JobBoardSearch Marketplace ๐Ÿซฑ๐Ÿผโ€๐Ÿซฒ๐Ÿผ (buy and sell job boards)

Exactly two years later, April 2024, JobBoardSearch ๐Ÿ”Ž had its best month ever of $7,320 ๐Ÿ’ต

Feels unreal, I still can believe it!!!

posted to
Building in Public
on May 3, 2024
  1. 3

    Great work on hitting the 7k mark! Itโ€™s impressive to see such success with a straightforward concept. Keep it up!

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot!

      Yeah, I still can't believe it.

  2. 2

    very inspirational story!

    1. 1

      Happy to hear it's inspiring!

      I get inspired by other indie hackers all the time so wanted to also share and build in public trying to inspire others a few steps behind

  3. 2

    awesome, quick execution and right timing.

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot! Yes, timing played and important role

  4. 2

    Congrats! Do you mind sharing how your journey of how you got the word out to get job seekers and employers on your site?

    1. 1

      After the initial traction thanks of Pieter Levels, I posted on Reddit and it went super viral. The post had 791k views and 4k upvotes and the website 35k unique in 24 hours

      Then folks on Twitter started to mention the website creating a kinda of a viral loop, people keep mentioning it all over the SN, you can see some of them at https://jobboardsearch.com/wall-of-love

      I also created a bunch of bots that cross post (LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, Telegram) jobs fetched from job boards with API or RSS that are listed on the website.

      All of these is helping to create an audience: Telegram Group 7.3k, Subreddit 7.4k, Newsletter 7.6k

      It didn't happen overnight, it's a long term game.

      1. 1

        Cool! Appreciate your sharing. Using the bots to cross post jobs on platforms makes a lot of sense for the long term game.

        Did some searching and found your thread that detailed how you got it off the ground in the early days. Super informational.

        I followed the link to the reddit thread that got viral on r/InternetIsBeautiful
        but it looks it has now been removed by the mods. Any idea how long it was up for before it got removed?

  5. 2

    I love this, congrats! ๐ŸŽ‰

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot, appreciate it ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿป

  6. 2

    Pretty sick, congrats on the success man! Seems like a high leverage company to have.

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot man, still not a stable income but looks promising.

  7. 2

    This is an amazing story @Rrmdp! A true story of flexibility and being agile based on what users want. I'm doing the same in my design quest! Plenty of unlimited design services so listening to what users want and need and pivoting smartly is essential.

    Thanks for sharing! ๐Ÿ”ฅ

    1. 1

      Happy to hear it's inspiring!

      I get inspired by others all the time so decided to also share and build in public trying to inspire others a few steps behind

      Good luck with your project ๐Ÿ˜€

  8. 2

    This is an inspiring story.

    1. 1

      So happy to hear!

      I got inspired from others all the time so decided to also share and build in public trying to inspire others a few steps behind ๐Ÿ˜€

  9. 2

    You should be very proud of what you've achieved. It's well deserved!

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot Tuiddy, I honestly appreciate it ๐Ÿ™

  10. 2

    Great tool! Do you think the subreddit & newsletter are key for the business model of sponsorships?

    1. 1

      Not the key because before having the audience in there the website was making money but definitely helps a lot

      Both drives a lot of traffic of job seekers to job boards, and for new job board it's super important to get traffic

      1. 1

        Thanks for sharing! Inspired

  11. 2

    I followed your journey while building my niche job board, great work you've done with this monetization plan!

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot ๐Ÿ‘

      What is your job board?

      1. 2

        It's a Symfony framework jobs only but I stopped working on it, as I learned it's so hard to reach recruiters to post on my job board vs big companies like remoteok, indeed, or local job boards popular in given country.

        I think it has potential, similar Laravel framework job board only makes some $, but is backed by framework community itself, so they are popular, well known in the Lara world.

        1. 1

          How long did you try for?

          1. 1

            A few weeks, I launched it, posted on some niche-related places, and got attention from Symfony devs, but struggled with reaching recruiters to post on the job board, and finally gave up, dived into new projects, which made me a few sales finally...

            1. 1

              Job boards need time, RemoteOK made $0 on its first year!

  12. 2

    Killin it!

    1. 1

      Not killing it yet but it looks promising ๐Ÿ˜€

  13. 2

    This is great! It is amazing that ppl encouraged you to charge. It's a common practice on several job posting boards so the culture is already built in. Congrats!

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot!

      JobBoardSearch is not a job board but a board of job boards, they pay for premium listings or sponsorships rather than jobs post.

  14. 2

    Thanks for sharing your success story Rod! It helps me with motivation ;-)

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot, I always get inspired by other indie hackers so the intention is to also inspire others a few steps behind ๐Ÿ˜€

  15. 2

    Used it myself for RemoteScouter.com, great work Rod. Solid product you've built.

    1. 1

      Thanks sooo much for your premium listing and feedback, honestly appreciate it a lot ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿป

  16. 2

    Congrats Rod!
    I tried with a list of services but with no luck!

    1. 1

      Thanks Joe, how long did you try?

      1. 1

        About that list not so much to be honest
        Now I'm working on a service to compare prices for hotels etc..
        Are you still working on it?

        1. 1

          Working on what?

          1. 1

            I mean adding new features and promoting JobBoardSearch?

            1. 1

              oh, of course, every single day.

              Just added the JobBoardSearch Marketplace (buy and sell job boards) https://jobboardsearch.com/marketplace

              1. 1

                Good!! Well done and good luck!

                1. 1

                  Thanks a lot man ๐Ÿ‘

  17. 1

    Hi Rod, super interesting! I've been running a niche job board for about a month, so I just signed up to the free plan. I am early stage and pre-revenue so not sure if paying for a premium version makes sense just yet?

    Something I was curious about was where your own users come from? If you are passing all this traffic to these other job boards as people have stated in your testimonials... how are these people finding your site? What did you do to catch that traffic in the first place?

    Thanks and best wishes!

    1. 2

      The top 3 sources of traffic are: 1. Direct / Word of mouth 2. Reddit 3. Google

      SEO and pSEO work, I also created various bots that cross-post the jobs on Reddit, LinkedIn, Telegram, etc

      Thanks for submitting and wishing a lot of success with your job board :)

      1. 1

        Thanks very much for the info!

        I actually signed up for the backlink more than the traffic; I imagine most people want the traffic? Is that what you've found?

        I feel like my job board is very niche and I am probably going to only be able to win with the long tail seo game... so that's what I am trying to improve in right now!

        1. 1

          The backlink and traffic, for premium job boards I distribute on multiple channels.

          Pinned post on subreddit with 7.5k members
          Pinned post on Telegram Grouop with 7.3k Members
          The weekly newsletter with 7.6k subscribers

          If your job board has an API or RSS feed then I cross post the jobs as well.

          It's only $19 to get featured and jump on the waiting list.

  18. 1

    Congrats on the execution, you saw an opportunity and you took it!

    1. 1

      Thanks so much!

      Luck played an important role here but of course I chased it ๐Ÿ˜€

  19. 1

    cant wait to see a directory of a directory

    1. 1

      I think already exists

  20. 1

    damn that's awesome!

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot ๐Ÿ‘

  21. 1

    Amazing but im getting jealous bro hahahaha

    1. 1

      Thanks, don't get jealous, get inspired instead, I get inspired from others all the time, the message I get is "is possible, if they can I can too" ๐Ÿ˜€

  22. 1

    awesome, well done :)

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot!

  23. 1

    How do you make $7320 with a few hundred visitors (unique) per month? Something isn't adding up.
    I can see your domain fully.

    1. 1

      In between 30k and 50k page views per month. 7.5k newsletter subs, 7.3k Telegram group members, 7.3k subreddit members.

      Job boards are interested in listing, also I built a meta feature to cross post their job listings.

  24. 1

    Cool story Rod! Could you elaborate a bit on "5 hours built a quick and ugly directory of job boards." Did you put together an excel sheet or started coding?

    1. 1

      Appreciate it man ๐Ÿ‘

      I was toothbrushing on a late Saturday night before going bed when I read the tweet about SOJ shutting down and folks asking about alternatives so right away registered the domain and went bed.

      Woke up at 7am and coded an static HTML + CSS website, curated 15 job boards, put it online and tweeted under Levels tweet

      1. 1

        Thanks for the detailed story ๐Ÿคฃ It is really refreshing seeing that you acted so fast! If you don't mind me asking you. I am thinking of starting something and wondering what would be the fastest step forward. If you were to start a crowdsourcing database to rate condominiums would you go with a static website first or an excel sheet or try something else? Thanks in advance

        1. 1

          I'm in love with SQLite, now I'm using it for all my new projects, it's super simple and portable.

          1. 1

            Cool thanks man. Will keep it in mind.

Trending on Indie Hackers
How we marketed our AI product for free. With real results! 21 comments I've built a 2300$ a month SaaS out of a simple problem. 20 comments ๐Ÿ”ฅ Roast My Landing Page 12 comments Where can I buy newsletter ad promos? 11 comments How would you monetize my project colorsandfonts? 8 comments How I built my SaaS in 2 weeks using NextJS and Supabase 6 comments