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Ask HN: I have 25k users. Now what?

32 points by jherg ↗ HN
I have an app in the App Store that has 25k users and growing quickly. Originally I built it as a passion project, but now I'm starting to think about monetization strategies. What are 25k users "worth" to advertisers?

20 comments

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l1ghthouse
Build pro functionality to sell to them
njsubedi
This sounds like a good idea at first but just don't jump into conclusion about what the pro features should be. Ask you users explicitly, and make your judgement.
easytiger
well that would surely depend on the app.
jherg
It's a Remote Job Board for iOS https://apps.apple.com/us/app/remotely-job-search/id13495238...

"Remote job boards" are a dime a dozen on the web, but first of its kind in a mobile app.

The easy answer is to sell featured job postings, but my users are candidates and not employers.

frakkingcylons
Time to email some recruiters at companies with remote positions (which I imagine is a lot of companies right now).
CodeWriter23
Knowing that, IMO two key questions to ask yourself: how long/how many users can you scale to without monetizing? And how engaged are your users?

I think the play here is: land grab and sell your users to an aggregator at some point. So I'd grow it as fast as possible while minimizing distractions. Also, I'm assuming you've read Traction. I'd burn out whatever growth you're doing until it dries up or you're approaching the point where you can no longer support it without monetizing before digressing away from what appears to be working great.

dglass
> my users are candidates and not employers

There's your answer right there. Find remote employers who are hiring and pitch them on a paid listing with prime placement within the app.

Job boards are marketplaces. Supply = employers, demand = candidates. Charge supply for access to demand. You've built up the demand side of the marketplace first. Now you need to build the supply side. How are you pulling in listings right now?

askafriend
> "Remote job boards" are a dime a dozen on the web, but first of its kind in a mobile app.

LinkedIn has a mobile app. Several in fact.

efficax
Monetize through preferred placement of job ads (like weworkremotely.com)

Grow through advertising of your own

Get purchased by indeed.com or whatever.

Profit

I'll take a 1% cut for coming up with this plan for you

hindsightbias
Someone else just posted this, thought it might be relevant: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/13/156737801/the-...

Maybe focus on the brand/scale, this is a unique time in history and monetize low for now, this could be the new normal. Profit when they’re hooked and not worrying about rent. Perhaps find sponsor/partner to fund backend scaling/adverts.

Multilanguage support for markets you think might be most related.

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tomstoms
Is this US only jobs if not would love to be able to filter on time zone and country of employment preferences, or contractor vs employment etc
tomstoms
Yeah sorry a bit off topic...
tomstoms
Yet a downvote is a bit harsh?
burn_cycle
Depends how low your costs are and long you can go without needing to make any money from it. If your expenses are manageable and profitability isn't an issue, it might make sense to improve your product (nicer UI, more features, etc) while growing your user base and getting more information about them (location, demographic, age, etc). This will improve your pitch to advertisers when decide to cash in by, perhaps, selling premium placement for ads by keyword (iOS, Python, Devops, etc).

One issue you might have is that your user's are "shortlived", I would imagine a typical user is going to use it for a couple of months every 2-3 years, hence why I'm stressing quick growth.

jherg
That makes a lot of sense. My costs are essentially $0. My time is the largest factor. Agreed the user's are most likely "shortlived", but I collect emails which could be nice for something like a newsletter.
burn_cycle
Yeah, newsletters seem big these days so that could work.

Alternatively you could let users make profiles with their preferences for their ideal job (remote only, MEAN stack, >£80k, etc) and notify them when a matching ad appears, you could even charge for this. This strategy allows you to also charge employers to contact/see your users, I think Dribbble does this, so it might be worth taking a look there.

Good luck and let us know how it works out, I love hearing about stuff like that.

lmedinas
Nice one! congrats! How did you developed your app ? since when its in the AppStore ?