Ambition

It's all about Ambition

The real challenge of starting a job board is not the technology behind it, but getting employers to post jobs and job seekers to search it. There is a critical mass that needs to happen on both sides before the job board becomes relevant. In the past I believe that this was accomplished with massive advertising campaigns, Matt and I discussed the idea of running a 30 second commercial during the superbowl but decided to save that for next year and take a more grass roots style approach instead.

Getting employers to post shouldn't be too hard... make it free to post for the first 6 months, when other job boards are charging hundreds of dollars a posting free isn't so bad.

Getting job seekers to use it will be a bit harder (enter the shameless self promotion you are now reading). A good place to start will be by documenting the project in my blog. I figure the worst case scenario is that in the future someone may find a shred of something useful here, while the best case scenario would be that I might be able to generate some *interest*.

I am convinced that if you give 2 good hackers 2 months with nothing else to do and they can build just about anything, we on the other hand have day jobs so this is going to be a tight deadline for us.

That being said, my philosophy on making things happen is this...
1) If you have half a brain.
2) And you are completely honest with yourself and others.
3) And you are not afraid of a little hard work.

Then the only thing stopping you from achieving whatever it is that you set out to do is your own ambition.

The name of the site is going to be JobJitsu.com.
Why did we choose JobJitsu.com?
Simple cause JobNinja was already taken.

Anyway enough Tony Robins speak, tomorrow's entry is all bout tech.

2 hackers

2 hackers, 2 months, and an idea...

Build a better job board. I was talking to my friend Matt and about the idea of building a better job board. It didn't take much to convince each other that we could do much better then what is currently out there.

Monster, Dice, HotJobs, Jobing (spelling?) et al have all gotten fat dumb and happy - Internet Explorer style (oh yes I did), the one thing they all have in common is how hard they suck. It's like there has been a feature freeze since 2002, moreover these job boards have all been overrun by staffing companies.

I am going to assert that coming up with better technology then what the current job boards have to offer won't be a problem. So what is it that we are going to do better? Good question, the answer is a closely guarded secret, but you should have some idea by 4/1/06 (our first launch date). Over the next 6-8 weeks I will blog about our methods and progress.

What makes us so sure that we can pull this off?
We have a secret weapon.

More on that tomorrow.

It all starts here

"It all starts here" is the title of a classic wmhc song and also makes a sweet title for my fist post.

The purpose of this blog is to allow me to document my adventures in both hacking and starting my own company, and who knows one day I may even post something useful to someone interested in the same stuffs.

I am a bit of a language nerd so there is a good chance you may see some ramblings on Python and lisp.

In the past I have worked at 2 startups, next up I plan on starting my own. My goal is to document that process here and hopefully help others interested in doing the same.

Worst case: I get to contribute my $0.02 -- hence the name.