Show HN: Remote Jobs (our answer to "Who Is Hiring Remote Workers?") • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Remote Jobs (our answer to "Who Is Hiring Remote Workers?")

#81

Post by chirayu » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 5:48 AM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #30

sleight42 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, greed certainly isn't our intent. As Dave (djbrowning) wrote, we're concerned about the quality of the content on the site. We're also giving away coupon codes right now (see my post below) to drive job posters to the site.

If quality was your only concern, you'd just charge a one time $5 fee. So I'd say greed is at least somewhat involved. And yes giving away coupon codes is good and well...but then you run into the quality problem that you use as an excuse to charge from the start. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with greed...provided it doesn't cause you to kill your business before it gets the chance to get off the ground…

I think the $75 per mo is actually a smart idea. It gives the founders lot more leeway in finding and sustaining quality traffic for the postings.

Re: Show HN: Remote Jobs (our answer to "Who Is Hiring Remote Workers?")

#82

Post by danssig » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 12:11 PM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #17

batasrki wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I respectfully disagree. If the market will bear it, you can charge for a service before "mass adoption"

not when the service suffers from a chicken and egg problem. Why would someone pay money to list their job on a site with no traffic? Why would someone go to a site like that if you only have a dozen jobs? This can be something good...but they are shooting it in the leg by being greedy

I don't think the chicken/egg problem applies here. It applies to e.g. dating sites because there are other options (e.g. other dating sites, bars, etc.). In this case, a ton of people want to work remotely and there is no central place to find that. Now I know of one place, so I'll definitely be checking it often.

Re: Show HN: Remote Jobs (our answer to "Who Is Hiring Remote Workers?")

#83

Post by danssig » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 12:16 PM UTC

sleight42 wrote: post #29

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a rural area in west of France :) http://bit.ly/fEjBxk

Oops misunderstood your use of "country". You meant "rural" -- like me. ;)

He did mean rural. :)

Re: Show HN: Remote Jobs (our answer to "Who Is Hiring Remote Workers?")

#84

Post by keefe » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 1:27 PM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #17

batasrki wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I respectfully disagree. If the market will bear it, you can charge for a service before "mass adoption"

not when the service suffers from a chicken and egg problem. Why would someone pay money to list their job on a site with no traffic? Why would someone go to a site like that if you only have a dozen jobs? This can be something good...but they are shooting it in the leg by being greedy

well said on both posts sir.

I doubt running this site costs so many resources that they NEED to be charging right now.

another option would be to leave the charge now link and go out to craigslist, dice, etc and be like hey! want to have your job listed on our site for free?

Re: Show HN: Remote Jobs (our answer to "Who Is Hiring Remote Workers?")

#85

Post by ohashi » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 4:12 PM UTC

sleight42 wrote: post #41

johnohara wrote: post #35

Seems a shame the unhyphenated domain name has been parked for 10 years. The good news is it expires in August. The trademark for it is dead as well: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4007:lt... The trademark registrant and domain registrant might be related or one in the same. Both were registered in 2001. Looks like it was intended for a remote job entry app. Worth watching.

Awesome research thank you!!!!

Except it's owned by Marchex, one of the largest domain holders in the world. They aren't letting it expire. They do sell domains though.

Re: Show HN: Remote Jobs (our answer to "Who Is Hiring Remote Workers?")

#86

Post by jtheory » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 6:15 AM UTC

jmcc wrote: post #78

kls wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for now you can easily moderate postings yourself. I would suggest using Turk or finding another resource that can do the manual moderating, you need to be expanding the core tech and business. Getting bogged down in these kind of tasks can kill your momentum.

I don't know how much Turk costs or how well it works, so I don't know if it would be a wise expenditure if you're not making any money. Again, it's kind of a chicken and egg problem. Not charging would invite more spam submissions, but deprive you of a revenue stream to fund outsourcing of moderation. But if payment is required before you even have to moderate submissions, that would minimize the amount of spam you'…

"Remote jobs" may be a larger niche than these discussions seem to assume.

"Remote technical jobs" is a niche that interests me (I found my current remote development job via HN) but "remote jobs" in general makes me think of all the spam email I get to get rich working from home (stuffing envelopes or jebus-knows-what-else). There's a huge difference between the high-powered developer who wants to live someplace beautiful and the out-of-work grocery store clerk who's reading the spam about "make thosandds from the comfort of you're own home" (and the "employers" targeting these people...).

With WheresTheRemote you're possibly shooting yourself in the foot a bit with the name; I wouldn't look to a site seemingly television-related for a technical job (to post one, or to find one). If you're actually looking for remote jobs of the sort that unskilled people can do while watching TV, you'll probably need to make it pretty cheap to post a listing (and regardless, certainly do something to get the ball rolling -- from the text on the front page, it seems like you don't have a single posting).

remote-jobs has some hints on the targeted niche based on the categories on the home page (seems closer to the HN remote listings, though it might help to explain your niche more explicitly).

Another thought on getting the ball rolling (for either site): what you really want is a set of really plum job listings in your niche that you can feature on the front page, and convince job seekers that there are good opportunities here (and job advertisers that they're on a site that is/will be attracting serious prospects). Maybe ask the employers with those great listings to self-select and contact you directly, and you'll post their positions for free?