As of November 1, there are almost 800 developers 😱 on RailsDevs. There are folks looking for entry level jobs all the way to CTO roles. And all across the globe. I think that for now I’ve solved the supply side of the marketplace problem.
It’s time to focus on the demand side, the hiring businesses. Here are some ideas to increase the number of businesses using RailsDevs to hire developers.
Since launch about a year ago almost all of of my marketing has been focused on the developer. But it might be time to start shifting some of that focus towards the folks doing the hiring.
One idea is to add a /hiring page and link to it from the homepage. Somewhere up at the top next to /pricing. There’s a ton of room for more links at the top. And I’m not sure if /about deserves top billing, to be honest.
A dedicated hiring page would speak directly to potential customers. It would cover a lot of what’s outlined on the existing pricing page but could talk more directly. It would also enable moving some of the content from /pricing to this new page, cleaning up the pricing page.
This could serve double as a landing page for advertisements or short links in emails, too.
This happens a bit organically already. A developer sees me tweeting about RailsDevs or submits a PR to the source code. Then they tell the hiring manager at their company and start a subscription. I’d love to encourage this even more.
I don’t think a discount code works in this scenario. This is already a trusted referral – there’s no need to risk tarnishing that with an unnecessary discount.
There’s something here but I don’t know what, yet. Ideas are appreciated!
I’ve wanted to do a referral program for a while and now might be the right time.
RailsDevs would offer a 10% lifetime revenue share with any referred business subscription. This means ~$30 per month to the person referring. And 10% of the hiring fee. The latter translates to $1500 if someone is hired for a starting salary of $150,000. That’s a solid return!