Japan Dev · B2B · Japan developer job board
List only ~100 good companies and turn down most who ask to join
Founder credits curation for making the model work; no numbers
Workedpositioning-niche
What they did
Keeps ~100 companies listed at a time, focused on modern/international startups and foreign companies friendly to English-speaking developers; turns down most inbound companies that don't meet quality requirements. Content emphasizes company culture and work style (inspired by Key Values).
What happened
Eric credits curation/being 'higher signal' as a big part of why the success-fee model works
In their words
Pete Codes · $60k/m from a job board“I get a lot of inbound uh interest from other companies, and I usually say no.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Japan Dev: List jobs free and charge a fee only when someone gets hiredSales converted pretty well; business at ~$60K/month
- Japan Dev: Give job seekers a ¥3,000 gift card for reporting their hireCatches unreported hires at a 'pretty good hit rate'
- Japan Dev: Collect applicants' name and email before sending them to the company's job page
- Japan Dev: Add a growing monthly fee to the contract for hires companies don't reportFounder believes cheating is rare; no numbers
- Japan Dev: Sign your own employer first, then use its name to sign othersNext two companies came relatively easily
- Japan Dev: Post jobs free and write each company's English profile and job adsEnough to land the first few companies
- Japan Dev: Grow the job-seeker side with SEO and an email newsletterSlow: ~12 months to first revenue; traffic grew steadily over years
- Japan Dev: Pivot to a job board after visitors kept looking for an apply buttonLed to the first paying clients
- Japan Dev: Have companies report hires within ~5 days; refund only part in month one