Starter Story · 2026-09-06

I make $25K/month from one simple website

Roman, a non-technical ex door-to-door salesman, runs Career Hound, a job board that scrapes listings straight from company websites for US job seekers, behind a hard paywall ($7/week, $20/month, $50/year). Two years after launch it did ~$25-28K last month (MRR $12K, 779 active subs). Growth comes from paid UGC: he researches his niche by scrolling for hours ('content thrifting') to find timeless, repeatable formats, then pays older creators found via DMs up to ~$20 a video to film them from a simple instruction sheet. 11.7M social views in 30 days.

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7 tactics

Career Hound · B2C · job board for US job seekers

Scroll niche content for hours to find topics that never go out of style

Founder credits it for all growth; same playbook for two years

'Content thrifting': spend hours scrolling and watching video and text content in the niche on Instagram, Reddit and TikTok, saving anything that grabs attention. Look for consistent patterns that reveal timeless topics (always relevant) rather than timely trends (dead within a week), since building distribution on trends means constantly chasing them.

Workedorganic-short-videougc-creators

Starter Story · 2026-09-06

Career Hound · B2C · job board for US job seekers

Keep reposting one video: a list of companies hiring remote, ending with your site

Run for two years; part of 11.7M views in 30 days

Winning timeless format for a job board: hook that calls out people wanting jobs hiring remotely and worldwide, then a list of companies offering that, and at the end 'to find more jobs like this, go on Roman's website.' Because the desire never changes, the same list format can be run again and again, escaping the trend-chasing 'hamster wheel' of UGC.

Workedugc-creatorsorganic-short-video

Starter Story · 2026-09-06

Career Hound · B2C · job board for US job seekers

Hire older creators, some in their 50s, to give job search advice

Founder says gray hair reads as credible; no numbers

For a job search product, picks older creators (grey hair, wrinkles) because audiences subconsciously link them with wisdom and credibility; a 19-year-old giving job advice isn't believable. Many are in their 50s and have never made content before, made possible by very simple instructions.

Workedugc-creators

Starter Story · 2026-09-06

Career Hound · B2C · job board for US job seekers

DM people already posting for fun; pay up to $20 a video with a ready script sheet

Keeps creator costs low; 11.7M views in 30 days

Finds most creators by scrolling and DMing people already making content just for fun: 'Hey, do you want to do some paid content work?' (marketplaces are the easier alternative). Pays no more than ~$20 per video in ~90% of cases. Keeps costs low by making it zero-research: creators open a sheet of formats with exact instructions; each brief is checked for 'any room for confusion or is it stupid simple?' Communicates with creators on WhatsApp; tracks views with Shortimize.

Workedcreator-opsugc-creators

Starter Story · 2026-09-06

Career Hound · B2C · job board for US job seekers

Charge from day one: $7 a week, $20 a month or $50 a year

779 active subs, $12K MRR, ~$50 LTV; 31% churn

No free plan. Plans: $7/week, $20/month, $50/year. Annual plans make monthly revenue ($28K) run well ahead of MRR ($12K).

Unknownpaywallpricing

Starter Story · 2026-09-06

Career Hound · B2C · job board for US job seekers

Run a marketing test every day and learn from each one that fails

Founder says it made success inevitable; no numbers

Runs many marketing experiments daily, aiming to fail fast to eliminate what doesn't work, and extracts insights from every failure. Uses PostHog for marketing experiments and Microsoft Clarity to watch website visitors.

Workedexperimentation

Starter Story · 2026-09-06

Career Hound · B2C · job board for US job seekers

Turn a friend's job-hunting scraper into a paid job board

Aimed for $1,000 each; grew to ~$25-28K a month

Co-founder found his own job by building a scraper for jobs posted directly on company websites; they productized that process into a job board for US job seekers, with a modest $1,000-each goal.

Workedvalidationpositioning-niche

Starter Story · 2026-09-06

Numbers mentioned

Who	Metric	Value	Context	When
Career Hound	revenue	USD 25K/month approximate	Last month; rounded figure in intro and title	1:17
Career Hound	revenue	USD 28K/month	Total revenue last month, including annual plans	2:02
Career Hound	mrr	USD 12K/month approximate	Gap vs total revenue due to yearly vs weekly/monthly plan mix	2:29
Career Hound	users	8,000 users approximate	Over 8,000 users	2:02
Career Hound	paying users	779 subscribers	Active subscriptions	2:02
Career Hound	ltv	USD 50per user approximate	Average lifetime value per user	2:02
Career Hound	churn	31%	Period not stated; high because job seekers leave once hired	2:02
Career Hound	price	USD 7/week	Weekly plan, hard paywall	2:02
Career Hound	price	USD 20/month	Monthly plan, hard paywall	2:02
Career Hound	price	USD 50/year	Annual plan, hard paywall	2:02
Career Hound	views	11.7M views/month	Social views in the last 30 days, across creator content	2:29
Career Hound	creator pay	USD 20per video approximate	Upper limit he pays in ~90% of cases	9:25
Career Hound	revenue	USD 1,000per founder goal	Original modest goal: $1,000 each for the two co-founders	3:35