railsdevs, a profitable business (hopefully!) 💵

[joemasilotti]

This discussion is to kick off conversations around making railsdevs a profitable business. From my opinion, there are three viable options.

1. Charge developers to list their profile

Is paying $100/year worth it for a developer to get hired? I think so. Even for a freelance developer. If they land a single gig via railsdevs then that $100 most certainly has paid off.

Pros

• Scalable based on the number of freelance Rails developers in the world
• The site isn't "selling" the developers ("if a service is free you then are the product" and all)
• Opportunity to offer promotion packages to have a profile show up higher or more frequently
• Contributing to the codebase could unlock a free listing or promotion

Cons

• Harder to prove value if only a few businesses are looking on the site
• Developers, in general, have less money to spend on this than a hiring business
• Not sure what to do with existing developers, moving forward

2. Charge businesses to contact developers

On the other side of the fence is charging businesses. This would follow the path of hiding a bunch of information unless the business pays $1000/year to gain access.

Pros

• Businesses generally have this kind of money to spend on hiring
• A bootstrapped business looking for a single freelancer might not have those funds
• There are already developers on the site, it should be easier to prove the value

Cons

• Developers become "the product" (see above)
• Could make the site awkward by hiding a lot of information to most people

3. Ask for donations and/or sponsorships

The would follow a similar approach to forem, the open source library that powers DEV.to. They have monthly/quarterly sponsors that show up on their site, their podcasts, contests, conferences, etc.

Alternatively, try and raise funds via GitHub sponsorships.

Pros

• Free for developers and businesses!
• Most accepted form of open source project funding
• High ceiling for potential revenue if it takes off

Cons

• Harder to sign a sponsor until you have decent numbers
• Harder to become sustainable in the long term
• Low potential revenue floor as it gets going

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Anyway, those are my thoughts! If anyone has any thoughts or feedback, please leave a comment below.

Worse case, this was a good exercise for me to organize what's been in my head for a while. ✌️

[joemasilotti]

Some more thoughts after a stroll through Mt. Tabor Park...

Charging the business feels the most viable. Developers are posting their profile with the intent to get hired! So my previous comment on them being the "product" isn't accurate. If they get reached out to / hired, that's a win everyone. And the entire reason for being on the site in the first place.

This makes marketing and positioning more straight forward. The site copy can speak to the developer - and getting as many of us signed up as possible. Highlighting that the site is a targeted inbound quality lead source goes above and beyond others like LinkedIn or cold outreach. And calling out that you will get reached out to aligns with the power dynamic I'm trying to shift.

Continuing that, a small section for the business is necessary but is framed differently that a traditional marketplace. For example, the end user (the developer) is the same for the site as the business. So more developers = better for everyone. Calling out that the developers are actively looking for work, are super targeted (freelance Rails devs), and diverse (more on that later) is a huge selling point.

Product-wise, we can hide the personally identifying information (outside of the avatar). Right now that means the social links and anything in the bio/hero that is a developer's name or project. Tapping the Message button can prompt a sign up for a Business Subscription with features and benefits. Essentially the landing page for a business.

Diversity. We are still not in a good spot on this site. We're getting better! But there's a ton more work to do. I'm planning on documenting more about this soon, but my immediate next steps are reaching out to more communities to get involved.

[joemasilotti]

I've decided to charge businesses $99/month. This includes the ability to contact developers directly through the site and (soon) see the real names of folks and their social links.

As of today, there are two paying customers, as documented in Monies.