I came up with the idea for matching up employers and potential employees based on common answers to user-submitted multiple choice questions: the idea is basically an online dating site, only for employment. I told my buddy about the idea and he pointed me to a WaPo article about how eHarmony is getting into this space, launching in December (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/08/08/eharmony-wants-to-match-you-with-the-perfect-boss/).
At this point, I have an MVP (emphasis on 'minimum') prototype running at http://proqua.0xf1d0.net; but I'm not sure where to go next. One possibility is to try some sort of advertising campaign; another is to proceed directly to seeking capital (I have some personal money to play with, but not nearly enough to build a team and make a splash in a furious hurry). Unfortunately, I have no direct personal experience with either.
If anybody has any suggestions for what a good next move would be, I'd appreciate it.
Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
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Re: Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
#2Do it, and stop reading any news about it. Talk to employers and recruiters so that your site has what they need. Include them in the testing, put their faces and names on the front page as advisers.
eHarmony is trying to get between the employment sites, recruiters and the employers. Get on the side of the recruiters and placement agencies and they will push the site for you.
edit In your questions, make sure NOT to box yourself in with radio buttons on questions where it should be multiple-choice, like "Which version control system do you use?".
Many companies use multiple VCS.
Re: Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
#3Competition reduces marketing expenses and adds parameters for differentiation.
Re: Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
#4There's lots of good things about this. They're going to spend money educating the market about this kind of service but they're never going to be a monopoly, they'll have lots of competitors if the market is big enough, and someone else had a similar idea and thought it wasn't horrible too.
You should launch and carry on with your existing plans, faster.
Re: Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
#5Competition reduces marketing expenses and adds parameters for differentiation.
I agree with you, but I'm not sure how effectively I can compete as a 1-person operation.
Re: Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
#6This is a good thing, not a bad thing. A market of one is a lonely place to be. It's much better to have a large company creating the market and bearing the expense and then leaving niches open for you to fill.
Re: Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
#7Competition reduces marketing expenses and adds parameters for differentiation.
I agree with you, but I'm not sure how effectively I can compete as a 1-person operation.
In terms of marketing, no, you'll never be able to compete with eHarmony, they were one of the first online dating sites with a TV presence, they know how to sell their wares.
However, a one man show can absolutely out-react a large company like eHarmony. Assuming you've got the chops, you can push out new features and respond to user needs much quicker than a large development team can, simply by virtue of having no debate or discussion to get in your way.
So if you can get known, you can compete.
I had a similar idea to yours a little bit ago, but don't have the freedom of time to develop it. I extended the questionnaire system it to the business model, where the more questions answered and details provided by the employer, the cheaper it is for them to list. Take advantage of the high cost of posting on most job boards to drive for better matches. The idea being that large corporations would likely just pay the extra cost to get their opening out there, but small companies would be incentivised to provide more indexable data in order to get better matches.
Dunno if its something that fits into your idea, but I give it up simply because I'm sick of how awful all the job sites are.
Also, if you need a source for questions: https://github.com/ChiperSoft/InterviewThis/blob/master/Inte...
Re: Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
#8How did you plan to market and sell your service before you found out about potential competition? You should execute that plan without regard to what others are doing.
The biggest threat to your ability to get off the ground is not eHarmony. In your general market (services that connect job seekers and employers), there is already significant competition, so what one company does or doesn't do will matter a whole lot less to you at this point than your willingness and ability to hit the pavement and sell what you have.
eHarmony is working with three Fortune 100 companies. There are 1000 Fortune 1000 companies. If you called each and every one of them, do you think you could get a few interested in working with you on a trial basis? The answer to this question will reveal more about your chances of success than a Washington Post article.
Re: Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
#9Recommended reading:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/24/with-1-5m-from-adecco-path-...
http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/16/path-to-shuts-down-after-l...
http://seriousstartups.com/2013/07/18/jacksonville-startup-p...
It seems something beyond smart matching algorithms is needed to really make it in the job search/recruiting space. Unless eHarmony has found such a breakthrough, they don't have any advantage but sheer weight. As someone else mentioned, smaller == faster. I wouldn't spend anything above what was already planned on marketing or whatever, you'll certainly not win that race when they have a fuckton of money available.
Re: Ask HN: Established company planning same thing as 1-man startup – please advise
#10I have seen a lot of startups with the same concept, probably at least a dozen. So you are not alone. That being said, worrying about competition is silly. In fact, if one of your competitors gets traction you should see that as validation for your product, think about what you can "copy" and what you can improve upon. Just make sure you can tell the difference between what the press writes and what is actually going on behind the scenes.
The real question you should ask yourself is: How passionate are you about this product? Can you imagine spending the next 3 years working on this, giving it your full time and attention?
If yes, go ahead, keep on eye on competition, but don't obsess about it. Keep hustling. There are many ways you can beat the "bigger" players. The best marketing is usually free. The saying that Microsoft was replaced by two guys in a garage doesn't come from nothing. Also, it's a big market with enough space for multiple players.
If you are not incredibly passionate about this industry and product you should probably stop right now. In this space, with lots of competition, you are probably not going to get huge traction (or money) from one day to another. It's a marathon, and without the right motivation behind the product it's difficult to keep it up. And most of your competition will die for this reason, not due to the lack of marketing dollars.
Edit: Also, a large part of marketing such a product goes towards changing the habits of job seekers. Initially, there will be a lot of resistance (or inertia). People are not used to your way of looking for jobs. You need to teach them. Competition will be immensely helpful with this. They educate your target audience for you. Once someone is actually willing to change their habits and try out a new way of looking for jobs (e.g. your competitor's) it's much easier for them to "just switch to the better product", which is where you come in.
PS: I won a hackathon with the exact same idea once ;) But I didn't keep working on it.