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[00:00:06.560 --> 00:00:07.760] Hey, what's up, dude?
[00:00:07.760 --> 00:00:09.040] What's going on, man?
[00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:10.560] I am excited.
[00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:12.000] I just got a text on my phone.
[00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:19.120] It says my new MetaQuest Pro is in delivery, so it should be here in a couple hours, I think.
[00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:21.120] I would love to also be excited.
[00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:28.720] My MetaQuest Pro was supposed to show up today, but for whatever reason, my card got declined.
[00:00:28.720 --> 00:00:30.640] Like, the purchase got declined.
[00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:37.440] And it also got declined right when I was landing in Arizona for a four-day bachelor party for my friend.
[00:00:37.440 --> 00:00:38.000] Perfect.
[00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:44.000] So not only do I not get my Quest Pro, but I also was like on vacation on this group trip.
[00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:45.200] This was like last Thursday, right?
[00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:47.120] Because the same thing happened.
[00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:55.040] Not the bachelor party, but I got a message from my bank that was like, hey, we got a sketchy charge from some company called Meta for $1,500.
[00:00:55.440 --> 00:00:59.440] We just went ahead and declined that for you, but if it's a mistake, let us know.
[00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:05.840] And I think what's going on is no one is like, these credit card companies aren't used to people spending thousands of dollars on Facebook.
[00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:10.160] Like the typical stories, if someone spent thousands of dollars on Facebook, they got scammed.
[00:01:10.160 --> 00:01:12.400] They didn't buy a VR headset.
[00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:14.800] That's like the place where people go to scam people.
[00:01:14.800 --> 00:01:15.760] Exactly.
[00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:18.000] But I don't even know what's in this headset, man.
[00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:22.480] Like, I was looking, the reviews are out because everybody's getting theirs delivered today who ordered this thing.
[00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:25.280] And like, I literally don't know what the features are.
[00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:28.000] I don't know what makes it better than the previous headset that I already have.
[00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:29.200] I just know that it's like a new gadget.
[00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:30.160] It's a new toy.
[00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:32.240] I like VR, and so I just bought it.
[00:01:32.240 --> 00:01:34.400] So I do VR all the time.
[00:01:34.960 --> 00:01:38.240] I have the MetaQuest 2, and I play a lot of ping pong.
[00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:39.840] And I bought the Quest Pro.
[00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:40.640] I mean, you suggested it.
[00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:41.520] You're like, oh, hey, this is out.
[00:01:41.520 --> 00:01:42.240] And I was like, whatever.
[00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:43.120] And I just bought it.
[00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:44.640] And I had no excitement about it.
[00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.280] Cause I'm like, I thought it was only going to be ping-pong.
[00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:50.240] But then I realized there's one of these meeting room apps.
[00:01:50.240 --> 00:01:55.200] It's not the one that we do, but it's one that allows you to have multiple different screens.
[00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:58.880] And I went into it with the Quest 2, and I thought it was really cool.
[00:01:58.880 --> 00:02:05.640] But the problem is if you have two or three screens, the computing power of the Quest 2 isn't that strong.
[00:02:05.800 --> 00:02:08.520] So it's really grainy.
[00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:10.120] It's really laggy.
[00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:12.600] You can't really navigate the screens very much.
[00:02:12.600 --> 00:02:19.320] So I assume that the Quest Pro really lets you engage with a bunch of different screens, lets you do things.
[00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:23.320] Yeah, it's got a higher resolution, but it's still not quite there yet.
[00:02:23.320 --> 00:02:28.040] So you've got the resolution on the goggles, which is like, okay, here's how high the resolution is when you're in VR.
[00:02:28.040 --> 00:02:38.680] But then if in the VR world, you're trying to look at a computer screen in VR, like that resolution can't be any higher than the resolution of your actual VR headset.
[00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:52.840] And so it's like, ultimately, if you really want to mimic having a bunch of different computer screens in VR, you need to have a VR headset that has crazy resolution so that it can have slightly lower resolutions and VR on your screens there that actually looks good.
[00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:56.760] Like that's, I think, probably five or ten years away before you even have screens that are that good.
[00:02:56.760 --> 00:03:01.560] I think way more interesting than that is your table tennis and VR.
[00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:06.600] Because every single week, I look at you in our root group and you have like the highest strain.
[00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:11.080] Basically, you burn the most calories every day because you're playing table tennis in VR.
[00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:15.800] And the only thing I do in VR really, besides the meeting rooms, is also exercise.
[00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:21.880] I do like the supernatural app, which is kind of like Beat Saber or DDR to a beat to like popular songs.
[00:03:21.880 --> 00:03:23.400] But like your table tennis is insane.
[00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:27.720] Like you play like, I don't know, how many hours of table tennis do you play in VR every day?
[00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:34.840] Probably an hour on average, which is like some days it's 30 minutes, some days it's like, I just get addicted and it's like hour and a half, two hours.
[00:03:34.840 --> 00:03:37.800] It's crazy that you can keep the headset on your head for that long.
[00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:38.360] Like, I think I'd be.
[00:03:38.440 --> 00:03:39.400] I think you get used to it.
[00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:40.200] It's like anything else.
[00:03:40.200 --> 00:03:45.440] Like, you just, if you do it often, probably your brain like acclimates to it in some way.
[00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:54.000] But I'll tell you what, I'm actually way more interested in, and this is only because I listened to a podcast about this new Quest Pro a couple of days ago.
[00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:57.920] Is apparently it's got AR, it's got augmented reality as well.
[00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:08.560] And this podcast went so far as to suggest that like Meta and Mark Zuckerberg's long play is actually augmented reality.
[00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:16.640] And VR is like a cool toy that people will enjoy for a while until the, like, you know, ideally, they just want like glasses, right?
[00:04:16.640 --> 00:04:18.240] But the hardware isn't there yet.
[00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:23.280] So for the time being, we have to have these big, clunky, you know, VR headsets.
[00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:23.600] But they're not.
[00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:25.360] I think VR headsets are a feature.
[00:04:25.760 --> 00:04:29.680] I think VR is way cooler than AR because, I mean, like, look at The Matrix, for example.
[00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:33.280] Like, The Matrix, the whole premise of that movie is it's virtual reality, right?
[00:04:33.280 --> 00:04:39.040] It's like if you put something over your vision and it's good enough, like we're not there yet, maybe we're 50 years away or 30 years away.
[00:04:39.040 --> 00:04:44.400] But if you put something over your vision and it's good enough, you can create literally any experience imaginable.
[00:04:44.400 --> 00:04:46.560] Like it obviates the real world.
[00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:48.080] Like you don't need AR.
[00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:52.240] Like AR can only ever do what the real world does, plus a little bit, but VR can do all of that.
[00:04:52.240 --> 00:04:58.320] Like you could literally create a VR app that demonstrates the real world and simulates you having an AR goggle.
[00:04:58.320 --> 00:04:59.920] Like literally VR could do anything.
[00:04:59.920 --> 00:05:04.080] And so I can't imagine the super long-term play being anything other than VR.
[00:05:04.080 --> 00:05:11.280] And I don't know what Mark Zuckerberg's like, I don't know what's going through that d's head, but I would assume that that's like why he's betting the whole company on VR.
[00:05:11.280 --> 00:05:13.680] And the AR is like a little bit earlier.
[00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:14.880] Hey, what's up, Eric?
[00:05:15.200 --> 00:05:16.240] Hey, what's up?
[00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:17.200] Not much.
[00:05:17.400 --> 00:05:20.720] Sorry to drop it in the middle of a VR versus AR debate.
[00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:21.520] Do you have any thoughts?
[00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:23.600] Do you own a VR headset?
[00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:25.840] I don't own any of them.
[00:05:26.080 --> 00:05:27.680] I've checked them out at various times.
[00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:32.600] I never quite felt like they were there yet, but I think I agree with you, though.
[00:05:32.840 --> 00:05:37.960] Super long term, I feel like VR is going to ultimately be the one that kind of goes the distance.
[00:05:37.960 --> 00:05:41.080] And AR is more of like a shorter term stopgap.
[00:05:41.080 --> 00:05:45.720] Yeah, it's a little plus, a little plug in the hole until we get to crazy VR.
[00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:46.360] But I don't know.
[00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:46.920] I'm a nerd.
[00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:48.200] I think most people don't.
[00:05:48.200 --> 00:05:53.080] Most people think all of this stuff is extremely unnerving and dystopian.
[00:05:53.080 --> 00:05:55.480] And I guess that's the benefit of being a nerd.
[00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:56.520] We don't.
[00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:58.200] I guess I should introduce you.
[00:05:58.200 --> 00:06:01.160] You're Eric Turner, you're a software dev from the U.S.
[00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:03.320] You've lived in Japan since 2013.
[00:06:03.320 --> 00:06:10.760] And you tweeted in July, so just four or five months ago, that Japan Dev, your startup, is a hyper-niche bootstrap business.
[00:06:10.760 --> 00:06:18.920] It has no employees, just my wife and me, and it's earned $60,590 so far this month.
[00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:21.080] Yes, that's right.
[00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:23.720] That's pretty amazing.
[00:06:24.440 --> 00:06:26.200] You don't mind, do you share your revenue numbers?
[00:06:26.200 --> 00:06:29.000] Like, has it changed since July?
[00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:29.640] Yeah, sure.
[00:06:29.640 --> 00:06:33.000] We can go through and give an update on that, actually.
[00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.120] So I tweeted that, I guess, back in August.
[00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:44.600] So that was about July's numbers, where I said in July we made about $62,000, I think was the ultimate number that we arrived at.
[00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:47.640] And then the next month, we actually did even better.
[00:06:47.640 --> 00:06:50.360] So we hit about $83,000.
[00:06:50.360 --> 00:06:52.280] And that would be September.
[00:06:52.280 --> 00:06:52.600] Yeah.
[00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:53.800] So that was the magic number.
[00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:56.600] Every indie hacker uses the number 83.
[00:06:56.920 --> 00:06:57.800] I know.
[00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:02.040] Because $83,332 times 12 is a million dollars a year.
[00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:02.680] Exactly.
[00:07:02.680 --> 00:07:04.200] So we actually did break that as well.
[00:07:04.200 --> 00:07:05.800] So that was obviously a big moment.
[00:07:05.960 --> 00:07:13.000] The only reason that I didn't go on Twitter, though, and talk about that was that I knew that this trend was not actually going to hold.
[00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:17.760] And the next month in September, we actually hit like 40,000 only.
[00:07:17.760 --> 00:07:18.720] That was going to be my question.
[00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:19.680] How stable?
[00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:20.400] Exactly.
[00:07:20.400 --> 00:07:21.520] So that's the thing.
[00:07:21.520 --> 00:07:25.600] What is it that makes the revenue fluctuate month to month with a job board?
[00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:31.280] Well, it's that I do billing a little bit differently than most indie job boards.
[00:07:31.280 --> 00:07:35.520] So usually they will be on like a pay per job post model, right?
[00:07:35.520 --> 00:07:40.400] You have a stripe button, you click it, 300 bucks or whatever per post, very straightforward.
[00:07:40.400 --> 00:07:47.440] But the way that we do it is actually that we don't charge the company until they make a successful hire through the platform.
[00:07:47.440 --> 00:07:51.120] So it's free to join, free to actually post jobs and everything.
[00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:57.920] There's no startup costs, but then we do take like a kind of a bigger sum later in the event that they actually do hire someone.
[00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:00.560] So that is why the revenue is so spiky.
[00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:03.120] So I should probably describe exactly how your site works.
[00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:04.160] You're kind of doing it right now.
[00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:05.520] So you run JapanDev.
[00:08:05.520 --> 00:08:08.240] That's japan-dev.com.
[00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:10.080] As we're talking about, it's basically a job board.
[00:08:10.080 --> 00:08:15.840] And you describe it as a curated site for tech jobs in Japan, for software developers and tech folks.
[00:08:15.840 --> 00:08:18.320] And I think what's smart about it is that it's English-friendly.
[00:08:18.320 --> 00:08:22.480] So that's kind of like your niche, English-speaking developers who want a job in Japan.
[00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:26.480] So basically, if I'm living in the US or Canada or wherever, and I'm thinking, you know what?
[00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:30.240] I want to move to Japan, check it out, but I don't speak the language.
[00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:32.240] I don't know much about the culture.
[00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:34.640] How am I even going to find a job over there?
[00:08:34.640 --> 00:08:40.000] I probably Google something like, I'll Google it now, English-speaking jobs in Japan.
[00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:42.080] And yeah, there you are.
[00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:44.720] Boom, number six, japandev.com.
[00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:46.560] I click that, and there you are.
[00:08:46.560 --> 00:08:48.240] You know, I browser site, I apply for a job.
[00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:51.680] Before I even move there, I can find a job in my space in Japan.
[00:08:51.680 --> 00:08:52.560] How does that describe?
[00:08:52.560 --> 00:08:55.520] Does that accurately describe the bulk of what you do at Japan, Dev?
[00:08:55.840 --> 00:08:57.440] Yes, that's perfect.
[00:08:57.440 --> 00:08:59.280] You know, I couldn't have explained it better myself.
[00:08:59.280 --> 00:09:03.880] I mean, we do cater, I guess, to people both in Japan and overseas.
[00:09:04.920 --> 00:09:10.280] So maybe that's the one thing I would add is that we do have some people already living here who want to get a better job as well.
[00:09:10.280 --> 00:09:15.400] But yeah, I mean, it's mostly focused on the English-speaking developer/slash kind of tech community.
[00:09:15.400 --> 00:09:16.440] That's pretty much it, though.
[00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:19.160] When you say we, you don't mean like a bunch of employees.
[00:09:19.160 --> 00:09:20.600] You don't mean like a gigantic team.
[00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:22.440] You mean you and your wife, right?
[00:09:22.760 --> 00:09:23.480] Exactly.
[00:09:23.480 --> 00:09:26.120] So it is a husband and wife project.
[00:09:26.280 --> 00:09:28.040] We built it together.
[00:09:28.040 --> 00:09:30.680] Now we are both working full-time on it.
[00:09:30.680 --> 00:09:32.280] We quit our jobs.
[00:09:32.280 --> 00:09:33.960] I was working as a software developer.
[00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:35.960] She is actually a designer originally.
[00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:39.320] So we had these kind of complementary skill sets, which was really perfect.
[00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:40.680] And yeah, so I write the code.
[00:09:40.680 --> 00:09:42.120] She makes it look good.
[00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:43.560] And that's what we're doing now.
[00:09:43.560 --> 00:09:45.400] We're both kind of working full-time on it.
[00:09:45.560 --> 00:09:48.360] Japan is like, I think, such a fascinating country.
[00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:52.360] It's very ethnically homogenous, which is pretty funny.
[00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:54.440] Like in America, we're all about diversity.
[00:09:54.600 --> 00:09:58.040] I just watched this first season of the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon.
[00:09:58.040 --> 00:10:03.160] And it's funny because it's this fantasy world, but you have this extremely diverse cast of characters.
[00:10:03.560 --> 00:10:08.360] There's this family that's owns the fleet and they're all black and blonde hair.
[00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:11.720] And then I watched The Rings of Power, which is the Lord of the Rings prequel series on Amazon.
[00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:12.360] It's like the same thing.
[00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:15.480] You have black elves and Asian elves and all this stuff.
[00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:17.640] And we kind of think of that as the norm in America.
[00:10:17.800 --> 00:10:21.960] Even the tech industry is like we should be super diverse and try to represent everybody.
[00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:26.360] But then you go to Japan and Japan is like 98.5% Japanese.
[00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:28.120] Like there is no diversity in Japan.
[00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:29.720] It's extremely homogenous.
[00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:31.400] You're a white guy from America.
[00:10:31.400 --> 00:10:32.840] Like, where did you grow up, I guess?
[00:10:32.840 --> 00:10:42.440] And what happened to you that made you decide, like, you want to go somewhere where you're going to stand out that much and be so different and not speak the language, presumably, and be so unique?
[00:10:42.440 --> 00:10:42.840] Yeah.
[00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:43.160] Wow.
[00:10:43.160 --> 00:10:45.200] So, you did some research, which sounds like.
[00:10:44.680 --> 00:10:51.280] And yeah, I'm not sure that I knew that 98.5% figure when I first decided to move here, to be honest.
[00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:53.920] But yeah, I mean, I grew up in the U.S.
[00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:58.080] And I guess I just always loved to travel.
[00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:02.880] And, you know, I had parents that really kind of impressed that value of travel on us.
[00:11:02.880 --> 00:11:05.600] And so we would, you know, we'd go on family trips and stuff growing up.
[00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:12.000] And I always had this idea that I really wanted to truly experience another culture rather than just kind of being born in one place in the U.S.
[00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:13.600] and living there my whole life.
[00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:15.600] I just had that kind of idea in the back of my mind.
[00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:25.040] So when I graduated from college, I knew that this was kind of my chance, you know, and I looked into moving abroad.
[00:11:25.040 --> 00:11:31.600] And I guess just really by chance, I had been studying Japanese, the language a bit, just because I was kind of interested in it.
[00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:36.640] And in high school, actually, I took Spanish my freshman year, absolutely hated it.
[00:11:36.640 --> 00:11:38.720] And I kind of swore off languages the next year.
[00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:41.360] Yeah, like I didn't take a language at all, you know, as a sophomore.
[00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:45.120] And then my high school just added this Japanese program for the first time.
[00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:46.800] And I was like, all right, check it out.
[00:11:46.800 --> 00:11:48.240] See, it just seemed like so unique.
[00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:50.240] It's so different from English and what I was used to.
[00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:51.440] So I was like, yeah, I'll try it.
[00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:55.680] And I kept taking the classes from high school then up through college.
[00:11:55.680 --> 00:12:02.160] And at that time, I was like, you know, Japan, if you're going to go just pick up your life and go live somewhere, it's actually a pretty good candidate.
[00:12:02.160 --> 00:12:03.120] You know, it's safe.
[00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:04.960] It's a developed country.
[00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:06.480] So no real concerns there.
[00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:14.800] It's got this unique kind of culture, which was something that I really was interested in having grown up in the US, which is kind of this newish country, right?
[00:12:14.800 --> 00:12:17.040] We don't have that like super long history.
[00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:22.320] So I just really wanted to do it for at least like a year or so, learn another language, experience a culture.
[00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:24.400] And I just kind of ended up choosing Japan.
[00:12:24.400 --> 00:12:32.280] And the way that I actually moved over was not as an engineer, since I had no, I had studied computer engineering in school, but I didn't have any actual experience yet.
[00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:38.200] So I was like, you know, I'm actually just going to take a break, I guess, and do English teaching for a year.
[00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:39.720] So that was the original plan.
[00:12:39.720 --> 00:12:39.960] Yep.
[00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:44.520] So I moved to Japan, be an English teacher, just do a one-year stint basically, and then go back to the U.S.
[00:12:44.680 --> 00:12:45.560] was the original plan.
[00:12:45.560 --> 00:12:48.680] Did you visit first or did you just like bounce over there?
[00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:49.960] I did actually.
[00:12:49.960 --> 00:12:58.200] I had a homestay for a month during high school, just as this, you know, there was this program with those like classes that I was taking.
[00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:00.200] So I had been there for a month and really enjoyed that.
[00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:03.720] And I felt like I wanted to do it for real and actually live there kind of as an adult.
[00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:10.120] So yeah, got on a plane right after I graduated from school and for what was supposed to be a one-year thing.
[00:13:10.120 --> 00:13:13.080] And now it's been almost 10 years since then.
[00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:14.440] It is such a cool country to visit.
[00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:18.200] I always say that Japan is like, it's my favorite country that I've never been to.
[00:13:18.200 --> 00:13:19.800] I don't even have plans to visit Japan.
[00:13:19.960 --> 00:13:30.920] It's not even on my calendar, but I know someday I will go and I know that I'll love it because it's such a cool, almost like alien country, just so different and distinct the culture and so many cool things come out of Japan.
[00:13:31.160 --> 00:13:32.120] You live there.
[00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:38.760] What's something that you know as someone who lives there and has lived there for quite some time that I wouldn't know as like a first-time tourist?
[00:13:38.760 --> 00:13:44.760] Or what's something that like, you know, any tourist might benefit from knowing that you appreciate about Japan?
[00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:49.720] Well, right now there are actually a lot of tourists coming since the borders finally opened up.
[00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:52.120] They were closed for like almost three years.
[00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:59.640] And the Japanese yen right now is actually at a historic low, which is terrible for me since I earn yen.
[00:13:59.640 --> 00:14:02.440] But if you're earning dollars right now, it's amazing.
[00:14:02.440 --> 00:14:06.040] So it's kind of a perfect storm right now if you did actually want to come visit Japan.
[00:14:06.040 --> 00:14:11.640] And yeah, I mean, I have some kind of standard advice that I give people who are looking to come.
[00:14:11.640 --> 00:14:14.960] One would be make sure you get a train card, like a Suica or Pasmo.
[00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:16.480] Don't mess around with tickets.
[00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:18.000] You know, don't tip.
[00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:20.000] That is one that Americans sometimes have trouble with.
[00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:21.760] Like, it's not a thing here.
[00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:22.560] Just don't do it.
[00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:24.720] You know, be quiet when you're on the trains.
[00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:27.840] You know, there's like this weird culture where people don't really talk on trains.
[00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:36.000] And there's always, you know, whenever I come here with like a foreign friend or whatever, they will be like that, that foreigner kind of on the train talking super loud.
[00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:37.840] So I try to tell them not to do that.
[00:14:38.160 --> 00:14:40.960] Yeah, there's a lot of just rand stuff like that, just like tips that I have.
[00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:43.760] Like if you're going a long distance, it's usually better to take the train.
[00:14:43.760 --> 00:14:47.360] Like I don't really recommend getting a car and trying to drive around the whole country.
[00:14:47.520 --> 00:14:50.400] It tends to be a bit slower and you don't really save much money anyway.
[00:14:50.400 --> 00:14:51.760] Parking is a big pain.
[00:14:51.760 --> 00:14:57.840] The irony here is I think I actually will make use of those tips because I would like to visit Japan.
[00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:03.120] And I'm shocked, shocked that Cortland won't because Cortland's obsessed with an anime.
[00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:07.920] Courtland has talked about how he thinks that's the most beautiful language.
[00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:09.760] Japanese is the most beautiful language.
[00:15:10.400 --> 00:15:14.240] Have you ever heard someone's like, watch an anime and then turn off the subtitles and just listen?
[00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:15.760] It's like ASMR.
[00:15:15.760 --> 00:15:16.160] I love it.
[00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:16.880] It's so good.
[00:15:16.880 --> 00:15:17.520] Wow.
[00:15:17.520 --> 00:15:20.000] And yeah, I was going to say, because I know you're into anime and everything.
[00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:21.200] So I was hoping you could have a lot of fun.
[00:15:21.280 --> 00:15:22.720] You probably watched 100 animes.
[00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:25.760] The thing is, I can watch animes without going to Japan.
[00:15:25.760 --> 00:15:28.480] So it's very easy to just not go.
[00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:34.160] Courtland's going to visit in VR, and Tommy's actually VR experience is better than my real experience.
[00:15:34.160 --> 00:15:44.000] But anyway, Eric, I'm curious about, like, you went there and you were teaching English, but I did a little bit of research and saw, like, eventually you started looking for a software engineering job.
[00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:45.760] What was your experience with that?
[00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:48.320] Yeah, so I just did the English teaching for one year.
[00:15:48.320 --> 00:15:51.840] I pretty much time boxed myself on that, said, I'm going to do it.
[00:15:52.160 --> 00:15:58.320] But then at the end of that, I'm either going to have to go home or maybe move to Tokyo and find a software development job.
[00:15:58.320 --> 00:16:03.000] Because I just, you know, my engineering degree that I had kind of killed myself to get was getting stale.
[00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:05.240] I had not gotten any experience yet.
[00:16:05.640 --> 00:16:08.120] So I was like, you know, I'll give it a shot.
[00:16:08.120 --> 00:16:10.280] I'll go to Tokyo, see if I can find something.
[00:16:10.280 --> 00:16:15.880] And so yeah, I just had, I think, like $2,000 in my bank account, something like that.
[00:16:15.880 --> 00:16:18.440] And I got on a train basically.
[00:16:18.440 --> 00:16:21.400] I was in this small town before in Toyama Prefecture.
[00:16:21.400 --> 00:16:25.800] And I just moved to Tokyo and got this, like, the cheapest possible apartment I could find.
[00:16:25.800 --> 00:16:28.200] It was like me and two other guys in this room.
[00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:30.360] And that was like 500 bucks a month.
[00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:33.640] So I was like, all right, I have at least a couple months before I literally run out of money.
[00:16:33.640 --> 00:16:36.680] And I just went all in on literally searching for jobs.
[00:16:36.680 --> 00:16:39.960] And it was a struggle, especially back then.
[00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:42.920] I think the industry has improved a lot now, so it's a little bit easier.
[00:16:42.920 --> 00:16:45.160] But I had no experience, no visa.
[00:16:45.160 --> 00:16:48.120] So a company was going to have to sponsor me, no money, like I said.
[00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:51.640] So I had kind of a basically a couple months to make this happen.
[00:16:51.640 --> 00:16:55.800] And I got rejected probably by like 99% of the places that I applied.
[00:16:55.800 --> 00:16:58.840] So that was a struggle that was kind of depressing.
[00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:03.240] But eventually I, you know, I finally found this small Japanese startup.
[00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:05.080] It was about 40 people.
[00:17:05.080 --> 00:17:09.800] And they, you know, were willing to basically hire me as a Ruby developer.
[00:17:09.800 --> 00:17:10.840] So that wasn't even my plan.
[00:17:10.840 --> 00:17:12.360] I was trying to be like a mobile dev at that time.
[00:17:12.360 --> 00:17:16.520] I had built some like random Android apps and stuff, but I applied.
[00:17:16.520 --> 00:17:18.520] They're like, hey, we need a back-end person.
[00:17:18.600 --> 00:17:19.720] I was like, yeah, all right, sure.
[00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:21.240] I'll write some Ruby code.
[00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:24.440] And so I got my first programming job that way.
[00:17:24.440 --> 00:17:25.640] But yeah, it was a struggle.
[00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:29.080] And honestly, probably one of the most stressful periods of my life.
[00:17:29.080 --> 00:17:29.640] I can imagine.
[00:17:29.640 --> 00:17:32.040] So were you fluent in Japanese by that by that point?
[00:17:32.040 --> 00:17:33.640] And are you fluent now?
[00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:35.320] I am definitely fluent now.
[00:17:35.320 --> 00:17:39.160] At that point, I was already good enough to be doing interviews and stuff in Japanese.
[00:17:39.160 --> 00:17:46.000] So, since I was really focused more on like the Japanese, like small startup companies, they were all in Japanese.
[00:17:46.320 --> 00:17:54.160] So, even that job, first job that I got, I was working 100% in Japanese, which is kind of what I wanted at that point because I really wanted to work on the language a bit more.
[00:17:54.160 --> 00:18:01.440] I thought if I could get that programming experience while also learning the language, I would kind of be able to kill two birds with one stone, you know?
[00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:06.560] I can imagine, like, I think the experience of being scared, you know, like I'm going to run out of money, because I did the same thing.
[00:18:06.560 --> 00:18:09.920] I moved to San Francisco right out of college and I had like no money.
[00:18:09.920 --> 00:18:11.200] And I was like, oh, that doesn't matter.
[00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:14.640] I'll just build a successful startup because I was 22 and an idiot.
[00:18:15.760 --> 00:18:16.960] I was like, I can do it in three months.
[00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:17.840] It'll be fine.
[00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:28.800] But I can't imagine having that experience, but then having it in a different country where I'm like new to the language and there's also like not that many other foreigners in the country.
[00:18:28.800 --> 00:18:30.080] So I'm like pretty much alone.
[00:18:30.080 --> 00:18:31.600] Like, what was your plan?
[00:18:31.600 --> 00:18:34.400] You know, if you didn't, you got rejected by 99% of companies.
[00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:37.280] Like, what was your plan if this startup didn't hire you?
[00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:44.400] The plan was just to hopefully save enough for a return ticket home and then go back to my parents' house.
[00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:45.840] And then, yeah.
[00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:48.480] So I knew I wouldn't literally die.
[00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:52.960] I wouldn't, you know, on the streets of Tokyo because worst possible case, like I was just go back.
[00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:55.760] And at least for like, you know, some period of time, you know, live with my parents.
[00:18:55.760 --> 00:19:02.080] But it was like coming down to the wire though, because like I said, I had this visa that was about to run out and I had to get a new visa from the new company and everything.
[00:19:02.080 --> 00:19:14.880] And I just remember I was trying to build these side projects and like at night, I would literally be like in McDonald's, you know, drinking these 100 yen, like $1 coffees for like hours, just trying to build these crappy like Rails apps and stuff.
[00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:20.000] So I'd have something to show, like some code to show the companies and having some code on my GitHub and everything.
[00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:22.640] So I didn't know if it was going to work or not.
[00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:25.840] And, you know, I was getting to really like, you know, I had met some people in Tokyo and everything.
[00:19:25.840 --> 00:19:28.880] I wanted to stay there, but I knew I had to find a job.
[00:19:28.880 --> 00:19:30.600] So it really just came through at the last second.
[00:19:29.840 --> 00:19:36.040] Like when I was honestly starting to think about getting up, I had this, like, two or three interviews left and one of them kind of panned out.
[00:19:36.360 --> 00:19:38.760] So it was really just luck.
[00:19:38.760 --> 00:19:39.080] Yeah.
[00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:41.800] What is what is Japan's tech industry like, right?
[00:19:41.800 --> 00:19:46.360] So Cortland and I obviously were in San Francisco when we were looking for jobs in our mid-20s.
[00:19:46.360 --> 00:19:51.000] And it's like, you know, there's the Googles and the Facebooks and all those things.
[00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:55.960] But in 2013, 2014, what was that like for you?
[00:19:55.960 --> 00:20:00.360] I feel like in the US, developers are super respected.
[00:20:00.360 --> 00:20:02.360] They have a lot of power, right?
[00:20:02.520 --> 00:20:05.240] Just because the demand is so ridiculously high.
[00:20:05.240 --> 00:20:22.600] And Japan is a little bit behind, I would say, on the software, especially like kind of internet tech side of things, where there's not going to be this guarantee, really, where if you just choose a company and start working as like a software developer, that it's going to be a particularly good work environment.
[00:20:22.600 --> 00:20:27.720] In fact, the average case is actually probably not very good, I would say.
[00:20:27.720 --> 00:20:33.960] It's more of like these older school Japanese companies that don't really respect software as much.
[00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:39.000] They have this history of like kind of outsourcing and really being more focused on hardware.
[00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:44.840] Japan's really strong when it comes to hardware and manufacturing these things, but they haven't really embraced software nearly as much.
[00:20:44.840 --> 00:20:59.000] So it's just a matter of being a lot more careful and trying to find that kind of pocket of companies because there is like another kind of segment of the market where it is really like international companies and the more modern Japanese startups.
[00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:02.760] So if you just focus on that, you can actually have a pretty good situation here.
[00:21:02.760 --> 00:21:04.280] So that's what I tried to do.
[00:21:04.280 --> 00:21:07.560] And I was researching, kind of building out this list for myself.
[00:21:07.560 --> 00:21:09.880] I had just this Trello list of companies.
[00:21:09.880 --> 00:21:15.120] And when I found a good one or met someone at a meetup that was another foreigner and they said, oh, this place is good to work at.
[00:21:15.120 --> 00:21:18.800] I would kind of keep track of that for my own job search.
[00:21:18.800 --> 00:21:26.960] Yeah, there's a line on your website, actually, where you say that you started Japan Dev in part to improve the image of Japan's tech industry around the world.
[00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:36.640] And I think I have the same image that you're describing, that it's like a very conservative place that, like you said, on one hand, Japan is a highly technically advanced society.
[00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:41.200] They're leaders in electronics and manufacturing, entertainment, anime, as we've said.
[00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:43.520] But I can't even think of a single Japanese tech startup.
[00:21:43.520 --> 00:21:47.120] Like, I guess they have SoftBank, which is invested in some other tech stores.
[00:21:47.120 --> 00:21:52.640] But besides that, there are no Japanese startup mobile apps that I use or websites that I go to.
[00:21:53.360 --> 00:21:56.560] It's just not a leader in that space.
[00:21:56.560 --> 00:21:58.240] Why do you think that is?
[00:21:58.400 --> 00:21:59.520] Do you think it is the culture?
[00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:02.800] Like, why don't you think they respect software there?
[00:22:02.800 --> 00:22:05.600] And how are you sort of hoping to change that?
[00:22:05.600 --> 00:22:07.440] It's a really good question.
[00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:14.880] I think that back in the 70s and 80s, Japan had this period of miraculous economic growth, right?
[00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:28.240] Where they had companies like Sony and Toyota basically driving all this incredible amount of growth, where they basically rocketed to the top of the GDP rankings in the world, where they're like the second biggest economy in the world.
[00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:35.200] And that was thanks to a lot of this manufacturing, electronics, this hardware.
[00:22:35.840 --> 00:22:45.280] So I kind of think that it is a remnant of that because you can point to that and say, wow, look at this amazing result we had with these physical goods.
[00:22:45.280 --> 00:22:51.680] We created all these processes and things to make them more efficient and build them faster and better than everyone else.
[00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:53.840] And it was amazing for us.
[00:22:53.840 --> 00:22:57.920] And people, I think, still kind of remember that bubble era of like the 80s and 90s.
[00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:09.000] And I kind of feel like that has remained very strong because those are still kind of the same main tech companies that people talk about today is like Sony and Toshiba and these types of companies.
[00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:13.320] And there's just been a lot more focus on that side of the market, unfortunately.
[00:23:13.320 --> 00:23:19.240] And then I would say really in the past decade or so, finally, there has been a lot of growth on the startup side.
[00:23:19.240 --> 00:23:27.320] And you may not have heard of any of the kind of new wave of startups that have come out, but they are getting bigger and bigger, you know, more and more profitable.
[00:23:27.320 --> 00:23:29.480] Like there's a company called Mercari, for example.
[00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:31.800] They're actually reasonably well known in the US as well.
[00:23:31.800 --> 00:23:33.800] I worked for them for a few years.
[00:23:33.800 --> 00:23:38.600] And, you know, they had like a seven or eight billion dollar, I think, like IPO.
[00:23:38.600 --> 00:23:39.720] They were a unicorn.
[00:23:39.720 --> 00:23:41.720] So I think there's like 10 or so unicorns now.
[00:23:41.720 --> 00:23:44.520] Maybe even like six, seven years ago, there were literally none.
[00:23:44.520 --> 00:23:46.520] So it is growing.
[00:23:46.520 --> 00:23:57.560] You know, I'm hoping that we'll start to see more and more of those companies get bigger and bigger and have maybe like a Google or like a Facebook level company come out at some point, but it has not happened yet.
[00:23:57.560 --> 00:23:59.960] So you were working at Mercari.
[00:24:00.200 --> 00:24:06.200] It seemed like it was kind of a nail-biter situation where, you know, you really, really needed to get that job.
[00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:08.520] And I'm sure it was great to get the job.
[00:24:08.520 --> 00:24:17.000] But then what is it, five or so years later now, and you just posted an $83,000 a month milestone with your new company.
[00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:18.040] What happened, right?
[00:24:18.040 --> 00:24:22.520] Like, you said you were building some side projects to find that job.
[00:24:22.520 --> 00:24:27.000] Did you know at that point in time that you wanted to eventually try to build your own thing?
[00:24:27.160 --> 00:24:28.280] How did your wife come into this too?
[00:24:28.280 --> 00:24:29.640] Like, is this someone that you met in America?
[00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:32.160] Is it someone that you met in the States and like, what was this conversation like?
[00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:42.040] Where you're like, hey, we should start a tech startup in this extremely conservative tech industry where like, you know, risk-taking isn't exactly rewarded in Japan or looked upon very favorably.
[00:24:42.040 --> 00:24:44.440] So I'm curious about that part of the story too.
[00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:46.480] First of all, I did work at Mercari.
[00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:49.760] That was the last company that I worked at before I quit my job to go full-time though.
[00:24:49.760 --> 00:24:55.760] So there were a few job changes that happened between the company that I mentioned, that kind of tiny Japanese startup.
[00:24:55.760 --> 00:25:05.520] And, you know, each time I switched jobs, I would learn a little bit more about kind of tricks for finding the best jobs here, you know, interviewing, all that kind of stuff.
[00:25:05.520 --> 00:25:09.120] And was trying to get bigger, kind of more globally-minded companies each time.
[00:25:09.280 --> 00:25:14.800] So I took a few of those kind of steps until I reached Mercari, which was the last time I worked out.
[00:25:14.800 --> 00:25:17.280] And somewhere in there, I did meet my wife.
[00:25:17.280 --> 00:25:23.120] Actually, we met pretty soon after I moved to Tokyo and got that first tech job.
[00:25:23.120 --> 00:25:27.120] And yeah, she was one of my kind of first friends here in Tokyo.
[00:25:27.120 --> 00:25:31.360] I guess grew into a little bit more than that and ultimately got married.
[00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:35.440] It's not like we had this plan to start a startup together or anything like that.
[00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:38.960] It was more just I was getting more and more interested in that.
[00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:52.880] And, you know, it was really more that she agreed to kind of support my vision that I had for basically a job board that was the service that I wish had existed, you know, because I, like I said, I really struggled when it came to finding that first tech job.
[00:25:52.880 --> 00:26:01.680] And even subsequently, and I was like, you know, it'd be really cool if we had a job where those focused on the needs of people like me where you can go and see, does this company sponsor visas?
[00:26:01.680 --> 00:26:05.680] Are they, you know, do they have a kind of international environment, things like that?
[00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:09.840] And my wife kind of really shared my enthusiasm for that idea.
[00:26:09.840 --> 00:26:14.080] She thought it was a great, great business idea and basically agreed to help out with me.
[00:26:14.080 --> 00:26:18.880] There's a lot of people, I think, who are working jobs who want to transition to become an ND hacker.
[00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:20.400] And I think it's like a tough path to follow.
[00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:22.680] Like financially, how do you support yourself?
[00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:23.440] And socially?
[00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:25.360] You know, it's like not necessarily the most acceptable thing.
[00:26:25.360 --> 00:26:26.240] It's a big risk.
[00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:29.760] And I think a lot of people just get inspired sufficiently that they want to do it.
[00:26:29.960 --> 00:26:32.040] For you, like, where was that inspiration coming from?
[00:26:32.360 --> 00:26:36.040] Was it, you know, you were just generally inspired to start a startup and do your own thing?
[00:26:36.040 --> 00:26:41.240] Or was it specifically related to you just want to solve this problem to help people find jobs in Japan?
[00:26:41.240 --> 00:26:51.720] I think it was more that I was always kind of building side projects and never actually, you know, promoted them or made any money from them or anything.
[00:26:51.720 --> 00:26:56.520] But I always had some kind of like side coding project that I was building.
[00:26:56.520 --> 00:27:02.520] And I guess just in the back of my mind, I knew that one day I would like to try being an entrepreneur.
[00:27:02.520 --> 00:27:15.480] And as I was going through my career here in Japan, changing jobs every couple of years and like I said, learning more about the industry and that kind of thing, I guess I kind of zeroed in on this one idea.
[00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:20.360] And there were kind of a few false starts before I ended up actually building it for real.
[00:27:20.360 --> 00:27:26.280] Like I think the first version of the site that I ever actually built was back in like 2017 or so.
[00:27:26.280 --> 00:27:36.040] And that was basically just, like I said, I had this Trello board literally that I was maintaining of good companies that I thought were basically good places to work for people like me.
[00:27:36.040 --> 00:27:39.400] And I essentially took that and turned it into a website.
[00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:41.800] And there weren't even any jobs, actually.
[00:27:41.800 --> 00:27:44.920] The MVP that I originally built was just a list of companies.
[00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:55.080] So that, you know, that initial version, I did the typical developer thing, didn't show it to anyone, kind of just built it, just wanted to write the code, whatever, you know, and then stopped, dropped it.
[00:27:55.080 --> 00:27:59.080] And then, yeah, I actually didn't go back to it until about two years later.
[00:27:59.080 --> 00:27:59.960] I don't know why.
[00:27:59.960 --> 00:28:02.680] I think I was just kind of looking at my life.
[00:28:02.680 --> 00:28:07.240] At that point, I had actually switched from being a developer to a like an engineering manager.
[00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:12.680] And just thinking about my career and like whether I wanted to kind of continue on that path or try something else.
[00:28:12.680 --> 00:28:14.880] I realized that, yeah, I kind of want to do something else.
[00:28:14.520 --> 00:28:19.280] And I kind of came back to that idea and built it for real, rebuilt that site.
[00:28:19.360 --> 00:28:25.120] And again, it was still just like this job, not even a job board, it was like this glass door kind of like review site at first, actually.
[00:28:25.120 --> 00:28:26.160] So that was a mistake.
[00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:31.600] I didn't, I built what I thought other people would want, but really I was the only one who wanted it.
[00:28:31.600 --> 00:28:35.200] So that is one thing that I would tell people who are interested in trying to build a business.
[00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:36.480] Yes, scratch your own itch.
[00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:37.520] That's great.
[00:28:37.520 --> 00:28:40.080] Do try to make sure that other people have that itch too.
[00:28:40.080 --> 00:28:44.320] Because I don't know, for whatever reason, I was really into companies and learning about them.
[00:28:44.320 --> 00:28:49.120] And I had this like list of like 50 plus like companies and all this data about them and the stuff.
[00:28:49.120 --> 00:28:52.320] And other people don't do that, I realized.
[00:28:52.640 --> 00:28:58.080] For whatever reason, I was kind of going a lot deeper than that, than a lot of people would, and built it.
[00:28:58.080 --> 00:28:59.680] And I actually showed it to some people.
[00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:01.040] I tweeted it out.
[00:29:01.040 --> 00:29:04.160] And it got some initial buzz originally.
[00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:06.080] And some people were like, oh, that's really cool.
[00:29:06.080 --> 00:29:07.360] But where's the apply button?
[00:29:07.360 --> 00:29:08.480] Basically, was what it was.
[00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:10.080] Like, I want actual jobs.
[00:29:10.080 --> 00:29:13.360] Like, I don't want to go digging through all this information about these companies.
[00:29:13.360 --> 00:29:15.600] And so I pivoted toward being a job board.
[00:29:15.600 --> 00:29:21.360] I love that you're in this sort of career space, hiring space, job board space, because there's just a lot of money there.
[00:29:21.360 --> 00:29:26.160] And there's a lot of important decisions being made there that change people's lives, that change the nature of companies.
[00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:35.520] And so if you have something that doesn't quite work, like you had this idea that you thought would work, but it didn't quite work, it's easier to pivot into something that will work because you're in like a really good space.
[00:29:35.520 --> 00:29:43.440] It's like one of the things I tell indie hackers the most is like, look for a place or a space where people care a lot and where people spend a lot of money.
[00:29:43.440 --> 00:29:49.040] I think every indie hacker wants to build a product where people care so much that they're going to use their product and they're going to tell their friends about it.
[00:29:49.040 --> 00:29:52.960] Every indie hacker wants to build a business that people care about so much that they're going to pay money for it.
[00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:56.240] And I think the shortcut is just like, where is money changing hands?
[00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:56.480] Right.
[00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:02.840] And like the job sort of career industry is like, obviously, where a lot of money is changing hands because it's like companies are hiring people and paying their salaries.
[00:29:59.760 --> 00:30:06.600] Like it's hard to even imagine an area of the economy where there's like more money being spent.
[00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:12.760] And on the flip side, you have people like you who are like, you know, out there looking for jobs and like they're stressed about it.
[00:30:12.760 --> 00:30:13.400] It's emotional.
[00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:13.800] It's important.
[00:30:13.800 --> 00:30:15.800] It's going to change where they live and how they live.
[00:30:15.800 --> 00:30:17.960] And so like they care a ton about that.
[00:30:17.960 --> 00:30:28.520] And so I think it's like such a great place to build a business because like even if you mess up, you know that like you're only like one or two steps away from like doing something that has real value to people.
[00:30:28.840 --> 00:30:41.320] And that was one thing I thought about a lot was like kind of trying to think about the flow of money within the industry and you know how actually in Japan it's a little bit unique and it's mostly from recruiting firms more so than job boards.
[00:30:41.320 --> 00:30:47.880] And that's one of the reasons that I decided to do the kind of unique per hire model as well is to be a little bit closer to that.
[00:30:47.880 --> 00:30:53.960] But if you just look at the companies and you know a lot of that money is going to these recruiting firms essentially.
[00:30:53.960 --> 00:31:03.480] And when you look at how much they charge, it's kind of eye-opening actually because usually it's a percentage of a person's starting salary.
[00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:06.920] And in Japan, it's actually even higher than it would be in like the US, places like that.
[00:31:06.920 --> 00:31:08.760] It's like 30 to 35%.
[00:31:08.760 --> 00:31:09.160] Whoa.
[00:31:09.400 --> 00:31:10.600] So that's a lot.
[00:31:10.760 --> 00:31:12.680] And that coupled with the fact that, yeah.
[00:31:12.680 --> 00:31:17.400] So my idea also was to be curated and focus on kind of the top of the market as well.
[00:31:17.400 --> 00:31:30.920] So when you kind of couple those two things, it was like, I'm only, you know, really working with these good companies that pay a lot of money and they're primed to be paying like 30%, 35% of people's salaries.
[00:31:30.920 --> 00:31:33.160] So to me, that seemed like a huge opportunity.
[00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:41.640] It's like, even if I am, you know, less than that, I can still charge a lot per you know per hire and build a good business that way.
[00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:45.000] So, as far as pivots go, this is an interesting one, right?
[00:31:45.120 --> 00:31:52.000] Because you pivoted from basically like a company, like a company discovery platform to this job board.
[00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:57.200] And secretly, what that means is that you pivoted towards a two-sided marketplace, right?
[00:31:57.200 --> 00:31:59.680] Which is like notoriously difficult.
[00:31:59.920 --> 00:32:01.920] You have the cold start problem, right?
[00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:03.360] This chicken and egg problem.
[00:32:03.360 --> 00:32:11.280] So, even if you were better addressing the actual demand and the opportunities here, now you've got this problem of like cold starting.
[00:32:11.280 --> 00:32:12.320] So, what was that like?
[00:32:12.320 --> 00:32:15.440] You know, did it take a long time or did you figure out any secrets?
[00:32:15.760 --> 00:32:18.320] So, you're always going to run into this.
[00:32:18.320 --> 00:32:25.440] And one thing I tell people is if you do want to build a job board, then have a plan for the cold start problem, right?
[00:32:25.440 --> 00:32:31.920] Because it's this catch-22 where to get applicants, you need companies posting jobs, but to get companies posting jobs, you need applicants.
[00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:44.960] So, as I mentioned earlier, I did have this initial version of the site where it was basically just this glass door site where people go on and see, okay, here's 50 good companies or whatever, you know, vetted companies that I was kind of backing.
[00:32:44.960 --> 00:32:52.720] And that got enough buzz, I think, where when I started to reach out to these companies, they at least had seen the site once.
[00:32:53.360 --> 00:32:54.720] So, that was actually really nice.
[00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:59.760] But I do think actually the main hack that I used though was I was still working at the time.
[00:32:59.760 --> 00:33:03.120] I was a software developer myself, and I went to my own company.
[00:33:03.120 --> 00:33:07.760] And that is really powerful, actually, because it was my target customer.
[00:33:07.760 --> 00:33:11.200] And I already obviously had the network of people there who I knew.
[00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:17.360] So, I was able to just break into HR very easily and have kind of a frank discussion with them, like what kind of features would you need?
[00:33:17.360 --> 00:33:21.360] And obviously, it's just a little bit easier of like a sales pitch and everything when you know the people.
[00:33:21.360 --> 00:33:25.440] So, that was my first customer, actually, was this company in Recovery that I was working for.
[00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:28.320] Then, there's still the question of like, what about company number two and number three?
[00:33:28.320 --> 00:33:35.000] And I do think that initial bump in traffic that I had helped because I think HR people especially had at least seen the site once or twice.
[00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:36.120] They kind of knew the name.
[00:33:36.680 --> 00:33:40.360] So, it wasn't a completely kind of cold introduction then when I was trying to email them or whatever.
[00:33:40.360 --> 00:33:45.320] The second person I actually found on Reddit, they mentioned that they were like an HR person at one of these companies.
[00:33:45.320 --> 00:33:49.480] It was actually Indeed, which is a big presence here in Japan.
[00:33:49.480 --> 00:33:54.520] So, I DM'd them on Reddit and was able to get an interview with their HR people that way.
[00:33:54.520 --> 00:34:00.840] And it was really nice to be doing the model that I am doing because I'm a developer, not a salesperson.
[00:34:00.840 --> 00:34:09.560] And it made the pitch so much easier because it was basically a no-brainer where I could walk in and be like, Hey, I'm going to post your jobs on this site.
[00:34:09.880 --> 00:34:11.880] You're going to get a bunch of traffic from me.
[00:34:11.880 --> 00:34:15.480] I'm going to build out a company profile page as well, all in English, like native level.
[00:34:15.480 --> 00:34:18.040] Like, I've worked at these big companies here.
[00:34:18.040 --> 00:34:19.080] I know what we want.
[00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:21.720] I'm literally the target customer for it.
[00:34:21.720 --> 00:34:25.240] So, I'm going to build this out for you for free, no upfront cost whatsoever.
[00:34:25.240 --> 00:34:27.160] I'm going to make you look good, you know.
[00:34:27.160 --> 00:34:27.480] Right.
[00:34:27.720 --> 00:34:30.920] And you're not going to pay me unless someone actually joins.
[00:34:30.920 --> 00:34:35.560] And even if that happens, it's still going to be less than you're currently paying these recruiters, right?
[00:34:35.880 --> 00:34:43.800] So, that was the only way I was really able to get them to agree was like to make the pitch such a no-brainer that they just couldn't really come up with reasons to say no.
[00:34:44.120 --> 00:34:45.240] So, that was a big part of it.
[00:34:45.240 --> 00:34:46.360] And that's how I got my second company.
[00:34:46.520 --> 00:34:47.720] I just went and talked to them.
[00:34:47.720 --> 00:34:51.080] And I had this kind of warm intro from someone literally on Reddit.
[00:34:51.080 --> 00:34:53.800] And once I had those two companies, I think the third one was a lot easier.
[00:34:53.800 --> 00:35:00.040] And then from there, after I four or five, and they were pretty well-known companies, then it just got a lot easier.
[00:35:00.040 --> 00:35:05.400] Ultimately, I also got some testimonials, which took it kind of to the next level to the point where, like it's it's not even difficult now.
[00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:08.440] Um, I get most of my new companies now from like Inbound.
[00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:11.320] Um, I don't even really go out and like search out companies anymore.
[00:35:11.320 --> 00:35:14.320] Maybe occasionally, if I find if I hear about a new company, it's like really cool.
[00:35:14.200 --> 00:35:17.920] But uh, now that that part, that side is not a problem at all.
[00:35:18.240 --> 00:35:22.320] The other side of the applicants, yeah, that was the problem.
[00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:23.040] Right, right.
[00:35:23.040 --> 00:35:24.880] So that took kind of, yeah.
[00:35:25.200 --> 00:35:29.280] So I had some companies now at this point and some jobs actually on the platform.
[00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:35.120] So if someone were to go on the site, we had that apply button, you could actually get value as a customer.
[00:35:35.120 --> 00:35:42.160] But that process of actually gathering more and more applicants took way longer.
[00:35:42.160 --> 00:35:45.440] And that was an absolute, like a real struggle for us.
[00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:56.240] And actually, I think from the time when I got our first signed contract with the company and the first jobs posted to the time that we actually got the first payment was about 12 months.
[00:35:56.240 --> 00:35:58.880] So basically a straight year of 12 months.
[00:35:58.880 --> 00:36:00.240] Yes, exactly.
[00:36:00.240 --> 00:36:09.280] And the fact that I had contracts meant that I was already, you know, it was a business and I had to, you know, listen to the demands of these companies, right?
[00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:13.600] Because they're, well, in theory, they had a contract to pay me as long as they hired someone, right?
[00:36:13.600 --> 00:36:16.240] And so the amount of work was increasing.
[00:36:16.240 --> 00:36:21.120] And I was still working as a, you know, an engineering manager, managing a team basically at one of these companies.
[00:36:21.120 --> 00:36:22.560] So I would basically work a full day.
[00:36:22.560 --> 00:36:23.920] I'd wake up, have 9 a.m.
[00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:26.720] meetings, all that kind of stuff, do my full day as a manager.
[00:36:26.720 --> 00:36:30.000] And then I would like finish, be like, oh, okay, it's over.
[00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:31.520] And then my wife would be like, all right, ready?
[00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:35.280] Ready to start work day number two at Japan Dev.
[00:36:35.600 --> 00:36:37.760] And I was like, oh, yeah, okay.
[00:36:37.760 --> 00:36:38.480] That's insane.
[00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:40.480] And so, yeah, literally, we did that for 12 months.
[00:36:40.640 --> 00:36:44.480] I love that there could be that 12-month lag, right?
[00:36:44.480 --> 00:36:45.600] Like you have this marketplace.
[00:36:45.600 --> 00:36:47.600] It's the cold start problem, like the chicken and the eggs.
[00:36:47.600 --> 00:36:48.560] Like, how do you get both parts?
[00:36:48.560 --> 00:36:54.800] But, like, if you do the supply side first and you have this awesome pitch to them, that's like they can't really say no to, they don't care how long it takes you.
[00:36:54.800 --> 00:37:00.680] Like, at some point, you're finding them customers, and that gives you the time to kind of do one side and then move to the other side.
[00:37:00.680 --> 00:37:03.080] At least they didn't churn, but yeah, yeah.
[00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:05.400] And then I also love that you started with like sales.
[00:37:05.640 --> 00:37:09.960] I think a lot of indie hackers have the opposite sort of mindset and intuition.
[00:37:09.960 --> 00:37:11.640] They think, oh, I'm a software engineer.
[00:37:11.640 --> 00:37:15.880] The thing I'm the worst at in the world is calling anyone or messaging anyone and doing sales.
[00:37:15.880 --> 00:37:16.680] Like, that's impossible.
[00:37:16.680 --> 00:37:19.080] And I certainly can't sell to like a really big company.
[00:37:19.080 --> 00:37:23.320] Like, what I need to do is find lots of individuals to sell to you, and I'll do marketing.
[00:37:23.640 --> 00:37:26.040] It turns out that is actually the hard part.
[00:37:26.040 --> 00:37:30.680] Getting thousands of people to your website, super duper hard, takes years for a lot of people.
[00:37:31.320 --> 00:37:39.560] DMing a few companies, sending some cold emails, having a few phone calls, almost anyone can do with really no experience.
[00:37:39.560 --> 00:37:41.000] And it's kind of shocking.
[00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:48.520] Like, I don't want to say that it's easy, but like, I've had experiences when I was selling ads for indie hackers where I would call up companies with no sales experience.
[00:37:48.520 --> 00:37:52.920] And then, like, an hour later, I would have made $5,000 because, like, yeah, we'll buy an ad on your podcast.
[00:37:52.920 --> 00:37:55.400] And I've had friends, my friend Lynn, who started Key Values.
[00:37:55.400 --> 00:38:00.040] It's kind of similar to your first idea where it's kind of a job board, but based on, you know, more glass door vibe.
[00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:03.400] She did the same thing, same process as you called up a bunch of companies.
[00:38:03.400 --> 00:38:05.880] The first few were like, oh, okay, I guess we don't have anything to lose.
[00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:09.160] And then after she had five or ten, it's super easy because she's all these brand names.
[00:38:09.160 --> 00:38:11.080] And everyone's like, our competitors are doing it.
[00:38:11.160 --> 00:38:12.520] Like, sure, we'll do it too.
[00:38:12.520 --> 00:38:18.600] And so I think starting with that sales approach is so much better for indie hackers than starting with trying to find thousands of users.
[00:38:18.600 --> 00:38:19.960] But eventually we had to do that.
[00:38:19.960 --> 00:38:22.760] At some point, you have to find the applicants.
[00:38:22.760 --> 00:38:24.760] And that's when it actually becomes a business.
[00:38:24.760 --> 00:38:27.000] Until then, it's not, you know what I mean?
[00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:32.760] People, you might think it is because you have so much code written or whatever it is, but nope, not a business until you have a customer.
[00:38:32.760 --> 00:38:36.120] But first of all, I love that episode with Lynn from Key Values.
[00:38:36.120 --> 00:38:41.400] That was actually one of the companies that we definitely looked at when we were first kind of deciding how to build the site and everything.
[00:38:41.400 --> 00:38:43.160] And I think I just done it wrong enough times.
[00:38:43.160 --> 00:38:53.200] Like, I mentioned that I have always kind of been building stuff on the side and doing the usual mistake of the software developer where I am building it, showing it to no one.
[00:38:53.200 --> 00:38:56.320] It just dies because, of course, I lose motivation, it's not earning any money.
[00:38:56.320 --> 00:38:58.240] No one's giving me feedback on it.
[00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:01.360] And then I did that probably five, six, seven times.
[00:39:01.360 --> 00:39:11.200] And this time I was like, all right, you know, I listened to things like Indie Hackers, you know, and I think I realized finally, like, okay, in order to actually do this, then we need to go out and talk to some people.
[00:39:11.200 --> 00:39:12.480] It was still incredibly scary.
[00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:14.800] I still did a horrible job at first.
[00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:24.160] Like, when I go back and look at the cold LinkedIn, LinkedIn messages and stuff that I was sending, I cringe so hard because they're like absurdly long.
[00:39:24.160 --> 00:39:26.000] There's no way anyone would ever actually read these.
[00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:26.800] They're so long.
[00:39:26.800 --> 00:39:30.000] You know, talking all about the service, not talking about the customer at all.
[00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:31.040] They're not benefit driven.
[00:39:31.040 --> 00:39:32.960] It's just like, we're building this really cool thing.
[00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:35.040] Like, here's why it's like so awesome, you know.
[00:39:35.040 --> 00:39:38.800] And like, no, like multiple CTAs, you know, it's just terrible.
[00:39:38.800 --> 00:39:42.240] I broke every possible sales rule, and it's amazing that anyone even responded.
[00:39:42.240 --> 00:39:45.360] I love that, though, because you could break all those rules and it works.
[00:39:45.360 --> 00:39:51.200] Like, you did it, you did it all wrong, and it still worked, which is so encouraging to other people who are just getting started.
[00:39:51.200 --> 00:39:56.880] I feel like your business matches up really closely with one of my favorite strategies for starting a business, which I've talked about a couple times.
[00:39:57.040 --> 00:40:00.000] It's a strategy that I use for indie hackers, which got acquired by Stripe.
[00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:02.720] It's a strategy that Peter Levels used for Nomad List.
[00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:06.320] He's making millions of dollars a year in revenue from that, and it's spin-off products.
[00:40:06.720 --> 00:40:14.160] Same strategy that Lynn Ty used in Key Values, which I think she makes like around 400 grand a year with Key Values, and it's just her, no employees.
[00:40:14.160 --> 00:40:17.920] And I think if you go through this process, you have a pretty good chance of building a profitable business.
[00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:22.160] So, I want to share it with you, and you tell me what you think and whether it applies to you.
[00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:23.840] It's kind of a three-step process.
[00:40:23.840 --> 00:40:30.920] So, the first step is you notice something in your life that's important to you and where you're doing a lot of research.
[00:40:30.920 --> 00:40:34.440] So, in my case, I wanted to start a bootstrap company that was important to me.
[00:40:29.360 --> 00:40:38.920] I started doing a ton of research to find other people who had done this so I can learn as much as I could.
[00:40:39.320 --> 00:40:46.760] In your case, like you wanted a job in Japan, so you're doing all this research, looking at all these different companies, you're applying, getting really familiar because it's just a lot to take in.
[00:40:46.760 --> 00:40:52.520] Or in Peter Levels' case, he was a digital nomad, and he was doing a ton of research about places to go and live and be a nomad.
[00:40:52.680 --> 00:40:59.480] He wanted to know how safe it was, and what the cost of living was and how fast the internet was, and that just required a ton of different research all over the web.
[00:40:59.480 --> 00:41:00.760] So, that's step one.
[00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:04.200] Step two is you got to take all your research, you got to make it presentable.
[00:41:04.200 --> 00:41:08.200] And that means, like, number one, other people have to care about this research, it can't just be you.
[00:41:08.200 --> 00:41:14.040] But then, step you know, two involves you need to put it on a website somewhere, you know, in a list or a grid format.
[00:41:14.040 --> 00:41:16.120] I think the grid's pretty for like, you know, pretty popular.
[00:41:16.120 --> 00:41:19.000] ND hackers in its early days is just a grid of interviews.
[00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:21.000] Nomad list is a grid of cities.
[00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:23.560] Japan Dev is sort of a grid of just jobs.
[00:41:23.800 --> 00:41:25.320] And what's important really isn't the grid.
[00:41:25.480 --> 00:41:31.960] What's important is that you know your target audience and what they want, so that your research, when you put it online, is formatted in a way that gives it to them.
[00:41:31.960 --> 00:41:38.280] And then you have step three, which I think is the hard part, which is what we're about to talk about, which is you got to distribute it, it's got to be discoverable.
[00:41:38.280 --> 00:41:47.960] So, it's not good enough for you just to have this all on the web, but you need to somehow get it out there in front of people who are doing the research that you were trying to do.
[00:41:47.960 --> 00:41:51.320] But now, when they're doing that research, they'll stumble across your thing, hopefully.
[00:41:51.320 --> 00:41:56.360] And so, with ND Hackers, I knew that, like, hey, everyone who wants to do this is looking at hacker news, so I'll post it there.
[00:41:56.520 --> 00:42:04.360] With Nomad List, I think Peter Levels is in all these different basically Twitter threads where he's posting Nomad Lists and like these different articles or targeted digital nomads.
[00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:06.600] And so, people who are doing research would find his website.
[00:42:06.600 --> 00:42:08.600] And with you, like you mentioned, SEO, right?
[00:42:08.600 --> 00:42:12.680] If I'm trying to find a job in Japan and I'm, you know, a foreigner, what do I do?
[00:42:12.680 --> 00:42:16.960] Like, I did research by going to Google and searching for it, just like I did earlier.
[00:42:17.200 --> 00:42:19.760] And like, that's where you need to be for people to find you.
[00:42:14.840 --> 00:42:21.120] So I do want to dive into that.
[00:42:21.280 --> 00:42:24.240] Like, how do you execute this third step of the process?
[00:42:24.240 --> 00:42:28.080] Like, how did you get yourself found by Google?
[00:42:28.080 --> 00:42:30.560] Well, first of all, I think that framework is totally on point.
[00:42:30.560 --> 00:42:32.000] Like, that's exactly what I did.
[00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:39.120] And like you said, the third step was definitely the hardest for me since I had never really done any marketing.
[00:42:39.120 --> 00:42:48.240] And unfortunately, it was also the slowest because I was relying, I would say the main distribution channel that we ended up using was SEO, especially Google.
[00:42:48.240 --> 00:42:55.280] Because like you said, that is pretty much where the traffic comes from for this kind of needs that I am focused on.
[00:42:55.280 --> 00:43:02.640] So, you know, a big part of that was just writing blog content, basically related topics to getting jobs.
[00:43:02.640 --> 00:43:06.800] I mean, because the job board itself, those pages will target keywords.
[00:43:06.800 --> 00:43:18.320] Like, you know, if you search like Python jobs in Japan or PHP jobs in Japan, those kind of, I created pages, separate pages basically to cover all of those for all the different programming languages and that kind of thing.
[00:43:18.320 --> 00:43:25.440] And then the next step was just basically writing content for our blog, which answered questions that people like me would have.
[00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:30.160] So, you know, one of the most popular ones I had early on was the salary guide that I wrote.
[00:43:30.160 --> 00:43:33.440] I was like focused really on these like more international companies.
[00:43:33.440 --> 00:43:40.480] And here's what you can actually earn as a software developer, you know, based on the level that your seniority and all that kind of thing.
[00:43:40.800 --> 00:43:44.880] And another one was just an overall guide that I had for like moving to Japan as a software developer.
[00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:59.200] So I was writing lots of blog posts and also just the page structure matters a lot as well, making sure you have kind of separate pages, like I said, rather than just like one big page that is going to be only hiring, you know, only really targeting one or two keywords.
[00:43:59.200 --> 00:44:00.600] So that was something that I learned.
[00:43:59.920 --> 00:44:03.960] Peter Levis, who mentioned, is another good example of this with Nomad List.
[00:44:04.120 --> 00:44:08.360] He has like tens of thousands of pages, I'm pretty sure, because each filter is its own page.
[00:44:08.360 --> 00:44:10.200] And I read this article about that and I go, oh, wow, I see.
[00:44:10.200 --> 00:44:12.120] So you got to split the pages up.
[00:44:12.120 --> 00:44:13.320] And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of...
[00:44:13.320 --> 00:44:15.400] other stuff I did like posting on the Google Jobs.
[00:44:15.400 --> 00:44:20.600] Yeah, like the Google Jobs Network already, there's this feature where it'll show the jobs in the search engine result.
[00:44:20.600 --> 00:44:24.120] So adding the markup to enable that gave me a pretty good boost actually in traffic.
[00:44:24.120 --> 00:44:26.360] I guess those are probably the main things that I was doing for SEO.
[00:44:26.360 --> 00:44:28.840] But the problem is that it is slow.
[00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:30.520] It compounds.
[00:44:30.520 --> 00:44:37.240] And you change something and you see the fruits of that literally three to like six months later.
[00:44:37.240 --> 00:44:39.240] So that is why I had this really long lag time.
[00:44:39.240 --> 00:44:46.680] And during that time, I was definitely improving the UX and everything as well to just make it super easy to find the apply button.
[00:44:46.680 --> 00:44:49.240] And the other thing, I guess, was the email list.
[00:44:49.240 --> 00:44:54.680] I didn't know this at first when I first put the site, but for job boards, I would say it's a big thing right now.
[00:44:54.680 --> 00:44:57.400] You really need to be collecting emails from the start.
[00:44:57.400 --> 00:45:03.880] And I got better and better at kind of sending those emails and figuring out how to write a compelling email to those people when I would post new jobs.
[00:45:04.120 --> 00:45:05.240] So I was doing that myself.
[00:45:05.240 --> 00:45:06.920] Kind of learning that copywriting as well.
[00:45:06.920 --> 00:45:10.760] And those were kind of the two biggest distribution channels that we had.
[00:45:10.760 --> 00:45:15.240] Of course, posting on social media as well, especially Twitter and LinkedIn, I would say.
[00:45:15.240 --> 00:45:17.000] LinkedIn actually worked quite well.
[00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:20.600] After a year, basically, it started to pay off.
[00:45:20.840 --> 00:45:23.560] And then from there, things got a lot easier.
[00:45:23.560 --> 00:45:25.400] What was that journey like emotionally?
[00:45:25.400 --> 00:45:29.640] Because I think a lot of indie hackers are in this state where they're trying to make their thing work.
[00:45:29.640 --> 00:45:30.440] They built a website.
[00:45:30.440 --> 00:45:31.160] They built the product.
[00:45:31.160 --> 00:45:32.200] They're trying to get customers.
[00:45:32.200 --> 00:45:33.480] It's not working.
[00:45:33.480 --> 00:45:35.640] And they get discouraged and quit.
[00:45:35.680 --> 00:45:40.760] You know, most people will quit after a month or two of writing articles, and it's not generating a lot of traffic.
[00:45:40.760 --> 00:45:45.040] Most people will definitely quit after like four months, or six months, or eight months, or 11 months.
[00:45:44.920 --> 00:45:46.160] Like, you made it like a year.
[00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:48.160] Like, what kept you going?
[00:45:48.160 --> 00:45:50.400] And how do you keep going in that situation?
[00:45:51.120 --> 00:45:57.600] One thing that actually helped was COVID because I didn't have to commute to the office anymore.
[00:45:57.600 --> 00:46:00.960] And I kind of just needed something to do, to be honest.
[00:46:00.960 --> 00:46:07.520] Where, I mean, at least here in Japan, like things were pretty locked down for like kind of that year that I was struggling.
[00:46:07.520 --> 00:46:09.760] So it was kind of nice to have it.
[00:46:09.760 --> 00:46:18.320] That doesn't mean it wasn't a struggle because it was definitely exasperating to see like the numbers go up and more and more people apply.
[00:46:18.320 --> 00:46:23.680] You know, I had more and more kind of high-quality jobs, and yet we still just weren't earning any actual money.
[00:46:23.680 --> 00:46:33.280] And if it weren't for, you know, being at home and not going out anyway, which kind of just being stuck there regardless, I probably would have ended up quitting.
[00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:39.200] But yeah, we were able to keep going just long enough to finally get our first actual payment from a company.
[00:46:39.200 --> 00:46:41.760] And then from there, we kind of had that as extra motivation.
[00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:43.840] We're like, okay, it works.
[00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:44.720] We've got to scale it.
[00:46:44.720 --> 00:46:46.720] Obviously, we've got to keep doing what we're doing.
[00:46:46.720 --> 00:46:50.800] You know, we have work to do yet, but this is viable.
[00:46:50.800 --> 00:46:55.440] There's these success stories of job boards, but the vast majority of people that started job boards have failed.
[00:46:55.600 --> 00:46:57.200] So what do you think you know that they don't know?
[00:46:57.200 --> 00:47:00.960] You know, what are people who's starting job boards doing wrong?
[00:47:01.280 --> 00:47:03.360] So there are so many job boards now.
[00:47:03.360 --> 00:47:07.840] And I've actually heard people say that they're kind of played out at this point.
[00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:10.400] They don't recommend creating job boards.
[00:47:10.400 --> 00:47:17.760] And I actually think there's still a lot of potential personally, but I do think you definitely need to niche down.
[00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:21.680] I don't think you should create another like remote job board at this point.
[00:47:21.680 --> 00:47:23.200] I wouldn't recommend doing that.
[00:47:23.440 --> 00:47:25.280] So definitely choose a niche.
[00:47:25.280 --> 00:47:32.840] And from there, I do feel like there is still this playbook that has worked relatively well for me where you do have the cold start problem, as you mentioned.
[00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:34.680] So having a way to get past that.
[00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:40.360] And a way that a lot of people do it is to just crawl jobs so that they already have the supply.
[00:47:40.360 --> 00:47:42.040] And then that attracts users.
[00:47:42.040 --> 00:47:58.1

Prompt 2: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 3: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 4: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Prompt 5: Context Setup

You are an expert data extractor tasked with analyzing a podcast transcript. 
I will provide you with part 2 of 2 from a podcast transcript. 
I will then ask you to extract different types of information from this content in subsequent messages. Please confirm you have received and understood the transcript content.

Transcript section:
bly would have ended up quitting.
[00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:39.200] But yeah, we were able to keep going just long enough to finally get our first actual payment from a company.
[00:46:39.200 --> 00:46:41.760] And then from there, we kind of had that as extra motivation.
[00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:43.840] We're like, okay, it works.
[00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:44.720] We've got to scale it.
[00:46:44.720 --> 00:46:46.720] Obviously, we've got to keep doing what we're doing.
[00:46:46.720 --> 00:46:50.800] You know, we have work to do yet, but this is viable.
[00:46:50.800 --> 00:46:55.440] There's these success stories of job boards, but the vast majority of people that started job boards have failed.
[00:46:55.600 --> 00:46:57.200] So what do you think you know that they don't know?
[00:46:57.200 --> 00:47:00.960] You know, what are people who's starting job boards doing wrong?
[00:47:01.280 --> 00:47:03.360] So there are so many job boards now.
[00:47:03.360 --> 00:47:07.840] And I've actually heard people say that they're kind of played out at this point.
[00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:10.400] They don't recommend creating job boards.
[00:47:10.400 --> 00:47:17.760] And I actually think there's still a lot of potential personally, but I do think you definitely need to niche down.
[00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:21.680] I don't think you should create another like remote job board at this point.
[00:47:21.680 --> 00:47:23.200] I wouldn't recommend doing that.
[00:47:23.440 --> 00:47:25.280] So definitely choose a niche.
[00:47:25.280 --> 00:47:32.840] And from there, I do feel like there is still this playbook that has worked relatively well for me where you do have the cold start problem, as you mentioned.
[00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:34.680] So having a way to get past that.
[00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:40.360] And a way that a lot of people do it is to just crawl jobs so that they already have the supply.
[00:47:40.360 --> 00:47:42.040] And then that attracts users.
[00:47:42.040 --> 00:47:58.120] And if that is like focused and it's like curated, I still think there's a ton of value in just taking the like sea of jobs that exist and saying, okay, I went through and I did the research for you and I found these good ones or these ones that fulfill this criteria so that you don't have to basically.
[00:47:58.120 --> 00:47:59.000] And here they are.
[00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:10.520] So if you do that combined with like some crawling to just get the jobs, because normally companies don't necessarily mind when you do that, they have these applicant tracking systems that have APIs, in fact, that you can kind of just crawl that data from pretty easily.
[00:48:10.520 --> 00:48:12.360] That's what most people are doing these days.
[00:48:12.840 --> 00:48:24.280] So as long as you do that and then really focus on SEO, make it really optimized, like I said, separate pages for all the different keywords and stuff, post it on Google Jobs, basically all those things that I did.
[00:48:24.280 --> 00:48:25.800] I think that that will still work.
[00:48:25.800 --> 00:48:28.120] And then, yeah, you just really need to go hard on the marketing side of things.
[00:48:28.120 --> 00:48:29.240] Make sure you're sharing it.
[00:48:29.240 --> 00:48:32.680] So yeah, I'm actually still very bullish on job boards in general.
[00:48:32.680 --> 00:48:40.840] In fact, I just started a new job board because I was kind of getting a little bit lonely over here in Japan, just having this kind of Japan-specific product.
[00:48:40.840 --> 00:48:43.720] And I wanted to try building something more for the international market.
[00:48:43.720 --> 00:48:46.280] So I actually am bootstrapping this new job board now.
[00:48:46.280 --> 00:48:48.680] It's a work in progress, but it's called rocketships.io.
[00:48:48.680 --> 00:48:56.760] So it's basically a job board for mid-stage companies in this kind of growth period between small startup and big established company.
[00:48:56.760 --> 00:49:00.360] With the idea basically being that these are the companies that are kind of growing the fastest.
[00:49:00.360 --> 00:49:03.480] They have the best risk reward because they have kind of the best of both worlds.
[00:49:03.800 --> 00:49:05.640] Sometimilar to Breakout list, if you've seen that, yeah.
[00:49:05.680 --> 00:49:11.080] The breakout list, or like on this other podcast, Microsoft Million, they talked about this concept against Sarah's list.
[00:49:11.080 --> 00:49:13.280] I don't know if you've, yeah, if you heard that, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
[00:49:13.160 --> 00:49:13.360] Yeah.
[00:49:13.480 --> 00:49:15.000] So I built a job board for that.
[00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:23.520] And my idea now is basically to take my playbook from Japan Dev, just apply all that stuff, and see how that goes for like US slash international market.
[00:49:23.520 --> 00:49:25.600] I love that the idea of Sarah's List.
[00:49:25.760 --> 00:50:47.640] kind of underexplored like way to make money in life essentially it's like you if you if you go online and you google like oh what what job should i get you know you're gonna get like you should be an engineer or you should be a doctor what about a lawyer or a plumber you're gonna like the most generic thing um but if you ask around on twitter you ask people in the know you ask like people who are in the industry they'll tell you about these like unique paths that can make you a lot of money like oh you could be an indie hacker or you could work part-time job save up your money then invest in real estate like or you could like go to the tech industry and look for these rocket ship companies that are undervalued at the time and if you pick well get a lot of stock and like become a millionaire just by working a normal job right which is what sarah uh sampar's wife did so that's such a cool job board idea i'm curious about the business model so like you mentioned earlier your business model is that you essentially only charge companies when they actually make a placement similar to a recruiter um but you're not a recruiter so you're not like hand-holding the applicants through the process no so it the product is a job board and it's monetized kind of like a recruiting firm how do you ensure companies pay because i imagine like you know that year long where you're like okay people are coming to my website i'm trying to get you know applicants like but i'm not making any money like maybe the companies are hiring people and just not telling you because there's really doesn't seem to be a way to enforce that and yet like here you are like clearly they are telling you and paying you how does that how does that work that is a very good question.
[00:50:47.640 --> 00:50:55.000] And as time went on, I basically created more and more ways to prevent that and keep companies honest.
[00:50:55.000 --> 00:51:01.800] So the first way that i do it is in the contract that i make them sign, there is a late fee and it increases the longer that they go without paying.
[00:51:02.040 --> 00:51:03.560] That's kind of the first line of defense.
[00:51:03.560 --> 00:51:09.000] The next thing is that I keep track of all the applicants.
[00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:10.280] So we have two ways of applying.
[00:51:10.280 --> 00:51:13.960] You can either go through email, in which case I have your resume and your email and all that kind of stuff.
[00:51:13.960 --> 00:51:20.760] So I know exactly who you are, or they can link directly to their like ATS, their applicant tracking system that they have.
[00:51:20.760 --> 00:51:24.760] And if I use that way, then I basically show a modal and I force everyone.
[00:51:24.760 --> 00:51:29.800] It's like a fairly strict modal where they all have to put in like some data, like email name, and a link.
[00:51:29.800 --> 00:51:32.760] Like usually it's like a GitHub or LinkedIn URL.
[00:51:32.760 --> 00:51:34.920] So that is the kind of next way.
[00:51:35.240 --> 00:51:37.000] I kind of have that data at the very least.
[00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:43.720] So then I can look at that and say, okay, this company has had all these applicants and they haven't hired anyone yet.
[00:51:43.720 --> 00:51:44.360] That's kind of weird.
[00:51:44.360 --> 00:51:45.800] So I can use that as a heuristic.
[00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:53.000] And then I do have one other kind of thing that I do, which is I have this actually this gift card now that I give away.
[00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:54.760] So I have this form actually on the site.
[00:51:54.920 --> 00:52:01.480] You'll notice there's a button that says like, you know, joined a company through Japan Dev or whatever, they found a job.
[00:52:01.480 --> 00:52:05.320] So on there, you can click and you can basically tell me about a job that you found.
[00:52:05.320 --> 00:52:08.840] And then I send you a like a 3,000 yen Amazon gift card.
[00:52:08.840 --> 00:52:14.120] So just as another incentive and also to kind of show companies and be like, hey, I'm asking them to send this.
[00:52:14.120 --> 00:52:26.440] So yeah, if I have all that data, so I can also just go back to, like I said, if a company is kind of looking a little suspicious and I can kind of do some crawling or at least look at people's LinkedIns, talk to some people, that kind of thing as well.
[00:52:26.440 --> 00:52:32.440] In practice, I actually think that the community is so small that companies don't really want to burn bridges.
[00:52:32.440 --> 00:52:38.520] And since, like I said, they are used to paying these high fees for recruiters, it's not that expensive to begin with.
[00:52:38.520 --> 00:52:40.440] Like they're already getting a pretty decent deal.
[00:52:40.440 --> 00:52:47.520] So I don't think it's really worth burning that relationship with us over that and not being able to use the service anymore.
[00:52:47.520 --> 00:52:49.360] So I think that keeps them relatively honest.
[00:52:49.360 --> 00:52:52.560] And if not, then I have a few other kind of tactics that I use.
[00:52:52.560 --> 00:52:53.440] That's awesome.
[00:52:53.440 --> 00:52:55.920] Well, Eric, this has been really cool.
[00:52:55.920 --> 00:53:00.640] You mentioned you, I think two months ago, you were at 83K, and then you kind of had a down month.
[00:53:00.640 --> 00:53:03.920] So I'm hoping for a 100K month for next month.
[00:53:03.920 --> 00:53:04.320] Me too.
[00:53:05.840 --> 00:53:08.640] Meanwhile, obviously you've had a lot of experience.
[00:53:08.640 --> 00:53:11.360] You've learned a ton, but a lot of our listeners are new.
[00:53:11.360 --> 00:53:14.000] So what's your advice for people who are just starting out?
[00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:22.240] Yeah, I kind of alluded to this earlier, but I think if I could concentrate my advice into one thing, it would be find a customer.
[00:53:22.240 --> 00:53:26.640] Because when you don't have a customer, you don't have a business, right?
[00:53:26.640 --> 00:53:32.640] And before that point, there are like an infinite number of things that you could do, all these things that you could optimize.
[00:53:32.640 --> 00:53:33.840] You know, you could write code.
[00:53:33.840 --> 00:53:35.520] I made this mistake myself.
[00:53:35.520 --> 00:53:46.240] I literally was building this Kubernetes cluster for six months, all these APIs and stuff for ultimately, like a product that no one really wanted.
[00:53:46.240 --> 00:53:49.600] And it's so easy to just do that and be in their kind of comfort zone.
[00:53:49.600 --> 00:53:52.240] You know, I was a programmer, so I just wanted to write code.
[00:53:52.240 --> 00:54:00.720] But then if you just say, okay, forget that, close the laptop, you know, whatever, commit your code, quit trying to mess with the design or whatever, it's fine.
[00:54:00.720 --> 00:54:01.840] You don't need a logo.
[00:54:01.840 --> 00:54:06.160] Just literally get on the phone, talk to some people, and just get a customer.
[00:54:06.160 --> 00:54:13.520] Because from that point on, once you have that, then everything, all that kind of like uncertainty, all the other unimportant things kind of fall away.
[00:54:13.520 --> 00:54:20.160] And you can just focus on what matters, which is that customer, getting the next customer and, you know, scaling from there.
[00:54:20.160 --> 00:54:23.600] And you'll see like what actually matters in a business, right?
[00:54:23.600 --> 00:54:26.800] And it goes from being a project to really like an actual business.
[00:54:26.800 --> 00:54:28.760] And so that is the one thing that I would just tell people to do.
[00:54:28.760 --> 00:54:32.840] It's like not next week, not next month, today, right now.
[00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:34.680] Literally, just go get a customer right now.
[00:54:34.840 --> 00:54:37.800] And I think that's the most beneficial thing you can possibly do.
[00:54:37.800 --> 00:54:39.320] Go get a customer right now.
[00:54:39.320 --> 00:54:42.040] Eric Turner, thanks a ton for coming on the show.
[00:54:42.360 --> 00:54:50.360] Can you let listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and about your new job board and also about Japan Dev?
[00:54:51.000 --> 00:54:54.520] Yeah, so my main project is japandev.com.
[00:54:54.520 --> 00:54:56.520] Yeah, there's a hyphen, but even if you forget, it's okay.
[00:54:56.520 --> 00:54:57.400] I have both.
[00:54:57.720 --> 00:55:02.680] And then rocketships.io is the other one if you are looking for a job.
[00:55:02.840 --> 00:55:07.480] Right now, kind of a state between like a prototype and actually useful, but there are already some jobs and stuff.
[00:55:07.480 --> 00:55:13.800] So if you want to see a list of companies where I think there's a better kind of risk-reward profile, yeah, check that out.
[00:55:13.800 --> 00:55:15.320] Otherwise, just hit me up on Twitter.
[00:55:15.480 --> 00:55:17.720] It's underscore et dev.
[00:55:17.880 --> 00:55:18.920] ET Dev was taken.
[00:55:18.920 --> 00:55:21.640] That's where I, that's what I am on everything else, like GitHub and everything.
[00:55:21.640 --> 00:55:24.440] But yeah, twitter.com/slash underscore et dev.
[00:55:24.440 --> 00:55:28.600] And also, if you're in Tokyo, I know a lot of people are coming right now because the borders are opening up and everything.
[00:55:28.600 --> 00:55:32.280] Hit me up because I'm always looking to meet other indie hackers.
[00:55:32.280 --> 00:55:34.120] 100 yen was a dollar when you were in McDonald's.
[00:55:34.120 --> 00:55:36.040] You just checked 168 cents.
[00:55:36.040 --> 00:55:37.000] I'm going to come and just buy it.
[00:55:37.240 --> 00:55:38.360] Isn't that insane?
[00:55:39.320 --> 00:55:39.960] It's ridiculous.
[00:55:39.960 --> 00:55:41.800] It's such a good deal right now, seriously.
[00:55:42.200 --> 00:55:42.600] Yeah.
[00:55:42.600 --> 00:55:43.640] Well, I'll see you out there.
[00:55:43.640 --> 00:55:44.920] Thanks so much, Eric, for coming on.
[00:55:44.920 --> 00:55:46.040] Thanks, man.
[00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:00.240] Mm.

Prompt 6: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 7: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 8: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Full Transcript

[00:00:06.560 --> 00:00:07.760] Hey, what's up, dude?
[00:00:07.760 --> 00:00:09.040] What's going on, man?
[00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:10.560] I am excited.
[00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:12.000] I just got a text on my phone.
[00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:19.120] It says my new MetaQuest Pro is in delivery, so it should be here in a couple hours, I think.
[00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:21.120] I would love to also be excited.
[00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:28.720] My MetaQuest Pro was supposed to show up today, but for whatever reason, my card got declined.
[00:00:28.720 --> 00:00:30.640] Like, the purchase got declined.
[00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:37.440] And it also got declined right when I was landing in Arizona for a four-day bachelor party for my friend.
[00:00:37.440 --> 00:00:38.000] Perfect.
[00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:44.000] So not only do I not get my Quest Pro, but I also was like on vacation on this group trip.
[00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:45.200] This was like last Thursday, right?
[00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:47.120] Because the same thing happened.
[00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:55.040] Not the bachelor party, but I got a message from my bank that was like, hey, we got a sketchy charge from some company called Meta for $1,500.
[00:00:55.440 --> 00:00:59.440] We just went ahead and declined that for you, but if it's a mistake, let us know.
[00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:05.840] And I think what's going on is no one is like, these credit card companies aren't used to people spending thousands of dollars on Facebook.
[00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:10.160] Like the typical stories, if someone spent thousands of dollars on Facebook, they got scammed.
[00:01:10.160 --> 00:01:12.400] They didn't buy a VR headset.
[00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:14.800] That's like the place where people go to scam people.
[00:01:14.800 --> 00:01:15.760] Exactly.
[00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:18.000] But I don't even know what's in this headset, man.
[00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:22.480] Like, I was looking, the reviews are out because everybody's getting theirs delivered today who ordered this thing.
[00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:25.280] And like, I literally don't know what the features are.
[00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:28.000] I don't know what makes it better than the previous headset that I already have.
[00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:29.200] I just know that it's like a new gadget.
[00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:30.160] It's a new toy.
[00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:32.240] I like VR, and so I just bought it.
[00:01:32.240 --> 00:01:34.400] So I do VR all the time.
[00:01:34.960 --> 00:01:38.240] I have the MetaQuest 2, and I play a lot of ping pong.
[00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:39.840] And I bought the Quest Pro.
[00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:40.640] I mean, you suggested it.
[00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:41.520] You're like, oh, hey, this is out.
[00:01:41.520 --> 00:01:42.240] And I was like, whatever.
[00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:43.120] And I just bought it.
[00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:44.640] And I had no excitement about it.
[00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.280] Cause I'm like, I thought it was only going to be ping-pong.
[00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:50.240] But then I realized there's one of these meeting room apps.
[00:01:50.240 --> 00:01:55.200] It's not the one that we do, but it's one that allows you to have multiple different screens.
[00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:58.880] And I went into it with the Quest 2, and I thought it was really cool.
[00:01:58.880 --> 00:02:05.640] But the problem is if you have two or three screens, the computing power of the Quest 2 isn't that strong.
[00:02:05.800 --> 00:02:08.520] So it's really grainy.
[00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:10.120] It's really laggy.
[00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:12.600] You can't really navigate the screens very much.
[00:02:12.600 --> 00:02:19.320] So I assume that the Quest Pro really lets you engage with a bunch of different screens, lets you do things.
[00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:23.320] Yeah, it's got a higher resolution, but it's still not quite there yet.
[00:02:23.320 --> 00:02:28.040] So you've got the resolution on the goggles, which is like, okay, here's how high the resolution is when you're in VR.
[00:02:28.040 --> 00:02:38.680] But then if in the VR world, you're trying to look at a computer screen in VR, like that resolution can't be any higher than the resolution of your actual VR headset.
[00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:52.840] And so it's like, ultimately, if you really want to mimic having a bunch of different computer screens in VR, you need to have a VR headset that has crazy resolution so that it can have slightly lower resolutions and VR on your screens there that actually looks good.
[00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:56.760] Like that's, I think, probably five or ten years away before you even have screens that are that good.
[00:02:56.760 --> 00:03:01.560] I think way more interesting than that is your table tennis and VR.
[00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:06.600] Because every single week, I look at you in our root group and you have like the highest strain.
[00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:11.080] Basically, you burn the most calories every day because you're playing table tennis in VR.
[00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:15.800] And the only thing I do in VR really, besides the meeting rooms, is also exercise.
[00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:21.880] I do like the supernatural app, which is kind of like Beat Saber or DDR to a beat to like popular songs.
[00:03:21.880 --> 00:03:23.400] But like your table tennis is insane.
[00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:27.720] Like you play like, I don't know, how many hours of table tennis do you play in VR every day?
[00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:34.840] Probably an hour on average, which is like some days it's 30 minutes, some days it's like, I just get addicted and it's like hour and a half, two hours.
[00:03:34.840 --> 00:03:37.800] It's crazy that you can keep the headset on your head for that long.
[00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:38.360] Like, I think I'd be.
[00:03:38.440 --> 00:03:39.400] I think you get used to it.
[00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:40.200] It's like anything else.
[00:03:40.200 --> 00:03:45.440] Like, you just, if you do it often, probably your brain like acclimates to it in some way.
[00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:54.000] But I'll tell you what, I'm actually way more interested in, and this is only because I listened to a podcast about this new Quest Pro a couple of days ago.
[00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:57.920] Is apparently it's got AR, it's got augmented reality as well.
[00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:08.560] And this podcast went so far as to suggest that like Meta and Mark Zuckerberg's long play is actually augmented reality.
[00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:16.640] And VR is like a cool toy that people will enjoy for a while until the, like, you know, ideally, they just want like glasses, right?
[00:04:16.640 --> 00:04:18.240] But the hardware isn't there yet.
[00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:23.280] So for the time being, we have to have these big, clunky, you know, VR headsets.
[00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:23.600] But they're not.
[00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:25.360] I think VR headsets are a feature.
[00:04:25.760 --> 00:04:29.680] I think VR is way cooler than AR because, I mean, like, look at The Matrix, for example.
[00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:33.280] Like, The Matrix, the whole premise of that movie is it's virtual reality, right?
[00:04:33.280 --> 00:04:39.040] It's like if you put something over your vision and it's good enough, like we're not there yet, maybe we're 50 years away or 30 years away.
[00:04:39.040 --> 00:04:44.400] But if you put something over your vision and it's good enough, you can create literally any experience imaginable.
[00:04:44.400 --> 00:04:46.560] Like it obviates the real world.
[00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:48.080] Like you don't need AR.
[00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:52.240] Like AR can only ever do what the real world does, plus a little bit, but VR can do all of that.
[00:04:52.240 --> 00:04:58.320] Like you could literally create a VR app that demonstrates the real world and simulates you having an AR goggle.
[00:04:58.320 --> 00:04:59.920] Like literally VR could do anything.
[00:04:59.920 --> 00:05:04.080] And so I can't imagine the super long-term play being anything other than VR.
[00:05:04.080 --> 00:05:11.280] And I don't know what Mark Zuckerberg's like, I don't know what's going through that d's head, but I would assume that that's like why he's betting the whole company on VR.
[00:05:11.280 --> 00:05:13.680] And the AR is like a little bit earlier.
[00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:14.880] Hey, what's up, Eric?
[00:05:15.200 --> 00:05:16.240] Hey, what's up?
[00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:17.200] Not much.
[00:05:17.400 --> 00:05:20.720] Sorry to drop it in the middle of a VR versus AR debate.
[00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:21.520] Do you have any thoughts?
[00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:23.600] Do you own a VR headset?
[00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:25.840] I don't own any of them.
[00:05:26.080 --> 00:05:27.680] I've checked them out at various times.
[00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:32.600] I never quite felt like they were there yet, but I think I agree with you, though.
[00:05:32.840 --> 00:05:37.960] Super long term, I feel like VR is going to ultimately be the one that kind of goes the distance.
[00:05:37.960 --> 00:05:41.080] And AR is more of like a shorter term stopgap.
[00:05:41.080 --> 00:05:45.720] Yeah, it's a little plus, a little plug in the hole until we get to crazy VR.
[00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:46.360] But I don't know.
[00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:46.920] I'm a nerd.
[00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:48.200] I think most people don't.
[00:05:48.200 --> 00:05:53.080] Most people think all of this stuff is extremely unnerving and dystopian.
[00:05:53.080 --> 00:05:55.480] And I guess that's the benefit of being a nerd.
[00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:56.520] We don't.
[00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:58.200] I guess I should introduce you.
[00:05:58.200 --> 00:06:01.160] You're Eric Turner, you're a software dev from the U.S.
[00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:03.320] You've lived in Japan since 2013.
[00:06:03.320 --> 00:06:10.760] And you tweeted in July, so just four or five months ago, that Japan Dev, your startup, is a hyper-niche bootstrap business.
[00:06:10.760 --> 00:06:18.920] It has no employees, just my wife and me, and it's earned $60,590 so far this month.
[00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:21.080] Yes, that's right.
[00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:23.720] That's pretty amazing.
[00:06:24.440 --> 00:06:26.200] You don't mind, do you share your revenue numbers?
[00:06:26.200 --> 00:06:29.000] Like, has it changed since July?
[00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:29.640] Yeah, sure.
[00:06:29.640 --> 00:06:33.000] We can go through and give an update on that, actually.
[00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.120] So I tweeted that, I guess, back in August.
[00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:44.600] So that was about July's numbers, where I said in July we made about $62,000, I think was the ultimate number that we arrived at.
[00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:47.640] And then the next month, we actually did even better.
[00:06:47.640 --> 00:06:50.360] So we hit about $83,000.
[00:06:50.360 --> 00:06:52.280] And that would be September.
[00:06:52.280 --> 00:06:52.600] Yeah.
[00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:53.800] So that was the magic number.
[00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:56.600] Every indie hacker uses the number 83.
[00:06:56.920 --> 00:06:57.800] I know.
[00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:02.040] Because $83,332 times 12 is a million dollars a year.
[00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:02.680] Exactly.
[00:07:02.680 --> 00:07:04.200] So we actually did break that as well.
[00:07:04.200 --> 00:07:05.800] So that was obviously a big moment.
[00:07:05.960 --> 00:07:13.000] The only reason that I didn't go on Twitter, though, and talk about that was that I knew that this trend was not actually going to hold.
[00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:17.760] And the next month in September, we actually hit like 40,000 only.
[00:07:17.760 --> 00:07:18.720] That was going to be my question.
[00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:19.680] How stable?
[00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:20.400] Exactly.
[00:07:20.400 --> 00:07:21.520] So that's the thing.
[00:07:21.520 --> 00:07:25.600] What is it that makes the revenue fluctuate month to month with a job board?
[00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:31.280] Well, it's that I do billing a little bit differently than most indie job boards.
[00:07:31.280 --> 00:07:35.520] So usually they will be on like a pay per job post model, right?
[00:07:35.520 --> 00:07:40.400] You have a stripe button, you click it, 300 bucks or whatever per post, very straightforward.
[00:07:40.400 --> 00:07:47.440] But the way that we do it is actually that we don't charge the company until they make a successful hire through the platform.
[00:07:47.440 --> 00:07:51.120] So it's free to join, free to actually post jobs and everything.
[00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:57.920] There's no startup costs, but then we do take like a kind of a bigger sum later in the event that they actually do hire someone.
[00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:00.560] So that is why the revenue is so spiky.
[00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:03.120] So I should probably describe exactly how your site works.
[00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:04.160] You're kind of doing it right now.
[00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:05.520] So you run JapanDev.
[00:08:05.520 --> 00:08:08.240] That's japan-dev.com.
[00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:10.080] As we're talking about, it's basically a job board.
[00:08:10.080 --> 00:08:15.840] And you describe it as a curated site for tech jobs in Japan, for software developers and tech folks.
[00:08:15.840 --> 00:08:18.320] And I think what's smart about it is that it's English-friendly.
[00:08:18.320 --> 00:08:22.480] So that's kind of like your niche, English-speaking developers who want a job in Japan.
[00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:26.480] So basically, if I'm living in the US or Canada or wherever, and I'm thinking, you know what?
[00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:30.240] I want to move to Japan, check it out, but I don't speak the language.
[00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:32.240] I don't know much about the culture.
[00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:34.640] How am I even going to find a job over there?
[00:08:34.640 --> 00:08:40.000] I probably Google something like, I'll Google it now, English-speaking jobs in Japan.
[00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:42.080] And yeah, there you are.
[00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:44.720] Boom, number six, japandev.com.
[00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:46.560] I click that, and there you are.
[00:08:46.560 --> 00:08:48.240] You know, I browser site, I apply for a job.
[00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:51.680] Before I even move there, I can find a job in my space in Japan.
[00:08:51.680 --> 00:08:52.560] How does that describe?
[00:08:52.560 --> 00:08:55.520] Does that accurately describe the bulk of what you do at Japan, Dev?
[00:08:55.840 --> 00:08:57.440] Yes, that's perfect.
[00:08:57.440 --> 00:08:59.280] You know, I couldn't have explained it better myself.
[00:08:59.280 --> 00:09:03.880] I mean, we do cater, I guess, to people both in Japan and overseas.
[00:09:04.920 --> 00:09:10.280] So maybe that's the one thing I would add is that we do have some people already living here who want to get a better job as well.
[00:09:10.280 --> 00:09:15.400] But yeah, I mean, it's mostly focused on the English-speaking developer/slash kind of tech community.
[00:09:15.400 --> 00:09:16.440] That's pretty much it, though.
[00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:19.160] When you say we, you don't mean like a bunch of employees.
[00:09:19.160 --> 00:09:20.600] You don't mean like a gigantic team.
[00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:22.440] You mean you and your wife, right?
[00:09:22.760 --> 00:09:23.480] Exactly.
[00:09:23.480 --> 00:09:26.120] So it is a husband and wife project.
[00:09:26.280 --> 00:09:28.040] We built it together.
[00:09:28.040 --> 00:09:30.680] Now we are both working full-time on it.
[00:09:30.680 --> 00:09:32.280] We quit our jobs.
[00:09:32.280 --> 00:09:33.960] I was working as a software developer.
[00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:35.960] She is actually a designer originally.
[00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:39.320] So we had these kind of complementary skill sets, which was really perfect.
[00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:40.680] And yeah, so I write the code.
[00:09:40.680 --> 00:09:42.120] She makes it look good.
[00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:43.560] And that's what we're doing now.
[00:09:43.560 --> 00:09:45.400] We're both kind of working full-time on it.
[00:09:45.560 --> 00:09:48.360] Japan is like, I think, such a fascinating country.
[00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:52.360] It's very ethnically homogenous, which is pretty funny.
[00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:54.440] Like in America, we're all about diversity.
[00:09:54.600 --> 00:09:58.040] I just watched this first season of the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon.
[00:09:58.040 --> 00:10:03.160] And it's funny because it's this fantasy world, but you have this extremely diverse cast of characters.
[00:10:03.560 --> 00:10:08.360] There's this family that's owns the fleet and they're all black and blonde hair.
[00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:11.720] And then I watched The Rings of Power, which is the Lord of the Rings prequel series on Amazon.
[00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:12.360] It's like the same thing.
[00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:15.480] You have black elves and Asian elves and all this stuff.
[00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:17.640] And we kind of think of that as the norm in America.
[00:10:17.800 --> 00:10:21.960] Even the tech industry is like we should be super diverse and try to represent everybody.
[00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:26.360] But then you go to Japan and Japan is like 98.5% Japanese.
[00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:28.120] Like there is no diversity in Japan.
[00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:29.720] It's extremely homogenous.
[00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:31.400] You're a white guy from America.
[00:10:31.400 --> 00:10:32.840] Like, where did you grow up, I guess?
[00:10:32.840 --> 00:10:42.440] And what happened to you that made you decide, like, you want to go somewhere where you're going to stand out that much and be so different and not speak the language, presumably, and be so unique?
[00:10:42.440 --> 00:10:42.840] Yeah.
[00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:43.160] Wow.
[00:10:43.160 --> 00:10:45.200] So, you did some research, which sounds like.
[00:10:44.680 --> 00:10:51.280] And yeah, I'm not sure that I knew that 98.5% figure when I first decided to move here, to be honest.
[00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:53.920] But yeah, I mean, I grew up in the U.S.
[00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:58.080] And I guess I just always loved to travel.
[00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:02.880] And, you know, I had parents that really kind of impressed that value of travel on us.
[00:11:02.880 --> 00:11:05.600] And so we would, you know, we'd go on family trips and stuff growing up.
[00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:12.000] And I always had this idea that I really wanted to truly experience another culture rather than just kind of being born in one place in the U.S.
[00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:13.600] and living there my whole life.
[00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:15.600] I just had that kind of idea in the back of my mind.
[00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:25.040] So when I graduated from college, I knew that this was kind of my chance, you know, and I looked into moving abroad.
[00:11:25.040 --> 00:11:31.600] And I guess just really by chance, I had been studying Japanese, the language a bit, just because I was kind of interested in it.
[00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:36.640] And in high school, actually, I took Spanish my freshman year, absolutely hated it.
[00:11:36.640 --> 00:11:38.720] And I kind of swore off languages the next year.
[00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:41.360] Yeah, like I didn't take a language at all, you know, as a sophomore.
[00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:45.120] And then my high school just added this Japanese program for the first time.
[00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:46.800] And I was like, all right, check it out.
[00:11:46.800 --> 00:11:48.240] See, it just seemed like so unique.
[00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:50.240] It's so different from English and what I was used to.
[00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:51.440] So I was like, yeah, I'll try it.
[00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:55.680] And I kept taking the classes from high school then up through college.
[00:11:55.680 --> 00:12:02.160] And at that time, I was like, you know, Japan, if you're going to go just pick up your life and go live somewhere, it's actually a pretty good candidate.
[00:12:02.160 --> 00:12:03.120] You know, it's safe.
[00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:04.960] It's a developed country.
[00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:06.480] So no real concerns there.
[00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:14.800] It's got this unique kind of culture, which was something that I really was interested in having grown up in the US, which is kind of this newish country, right?
[00:12:14.800 --> 00:12:17.040] We don't have that like super long history.
[00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:22.320] So I just really wanted to do it for at least like a year or so, learn another language, experience a culture.
[00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:24.400] And I just kind of ended up choosing Japan.
[00:12:24.400 --> 00:12:32.280] And the way that I actually moved over was not as an engineer, since I had no, I had studied computer engineering in school, but I didn't have any actual experience yet.
[00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:38.200] So I was like, you know, I'm actually just going to take a break, I guess, and do English teaching for a year.
[00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:39.720] So that was the original plan.
[00:12:39.720 --> 00:12:39.960] Yep.
[00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:44.520] So I moved to Japan, be an English teacher, just do a one-year stint basically, and then go back to the U.S.
[00:12:44.680 --> 00:12:45.560] was the original plan.
[00:12:45.560 --> 00:12:48.680] Did you visit first or did you just like bounce over there?
[00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:49.960] I did actually.
[00:12:49.960 --> 00:12:58.200] I had a homestay for a month during high school, just as this, you know, there was this program with those like classes that I was taking.
[00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:00.200] So I had been there for a month and really enjoyed that.
[00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:03.720] And I felt like I wanted to do it for real and actually live there kind of as an adult.
[00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:10.120] So yeah, got on a plane right after I graduated from school and for what was supposed to be a one-year thing.
[00:13:10.120 --> 00:13:13.080] And now it's been almost 10 years since then.
[00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:14.440] It is such a cool country to visit.
[00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:18.200] I always say that Japan is like, it's my favorite country that I've never been to.
[00:13:18.200 --> 00:13:19.800] I don't even have plans to visit Japan.
[00:13:19.960 --> 00:13:30.920] It's not even on my calendar, but I know someday I will go and I know that I'll love it because it's such a cool, almost like alien country, just so different and distinct the culture and so many cool things come out of Japan.
[00:13:31.160 --> 00:13:32.120] You live there.
[00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:38.760] What's something that you know as someone who lives there and has lived there for quite some time that I wouldn't know as like a first-time tourist?
[00:13:38.760 --> 00:13:44.760] Or what's something that like, you know, any tourist might benefit from knowing that you appreciate about Japan?
[00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:49.720] Well, right now there are actually a lot of tourists coming since the borders finally opened up.
[00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:52.120] They were closed for like almost three years.
[00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:59.640] And the Japanese yen right now is actually at a historic low, which is terrible for me since I earn yen.
[00:13:59.640 --> 00:14:02.440] But if you're earning dollars right now, it's amazing.
[00:14:02.440 --> 00:14:06.040] So it's kind of a perfect storm right now if you did actually want to come visit Japan.
[00:14:06.040 --> 00:14:11.640] And yeah, I mean, I have some kind of standard advice that I give people who are looking to come.
[00:14:11.640 --> 00:14:14.960] One would be make sure you get a train card, like a Suica or Pasmo.
[00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:16.480] Don't mess around with tickets.
[00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:18.000] You know, don't tip.
[00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:20.000] That is one that Americans sometimes have trouble with.
[00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:21.760] Like, it's not a thing here.
[00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:22.560] Just don't do it.
[00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:24.720] You know, be quiet when you're on the trains.
[00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:27.840] You know, there's like this weird culture where people don't really talk on trains.
[00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:36.000] And there's always, you know, whenever I come here with like a foreign friend or whatever, they will be like that, that foreigner kind of on the train talking super loud.
[00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:37.840] So I try to tell them not to do that.
[00:14:38.160 --> 00:14:40.960] Yeah, there's a lot of just rand stuff like that, just like tips that I have.
[00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:43.760] Like if you're going a long distance, it's usually better to take the train.
[00:14:43.760 --> 00:14:47.360] Like I don't really recommend getting a car and trying to drive around the whole country.
[00:14:47.520 --> 00:14:50.400] It tends to be a bit slower and you don't really save much money anyway.
[00:14:50.400 --> 00:14:51.760] Parking is a big pain.
[00:14:51.760 --> 00:14:57.840] The irony here is I think I actually will make use of those tips because I would like to visit Japan.
[00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:03.120] And I'm shocked, shocked that Cortland won't because Cortland's obsessed with an anime.
[00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:07.920] Courtland has talked about how he thinks that's the most beautiful language.
[00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:09.760] Japanese is the most beautiful language.
[00:15:10.400 --> 00:15:14.240] Have you ever heard someone's like, watch an anime and then turn off the subtitles and just listen?
[00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:15.760] It's like ASMR.
[00:15:15.760 --> 00:15:16.160] I love it.
[00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:16.880] It's so good.
[00:15:16.880 --> 00:15:17.520] Wow.
[00:15:17.520 --> 00:15:20.000] And yeah, I was going to say, because I know you're into anime and everything.
[00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:21.200] So I was hoping you could have a lot of fun.
[00:15:21.280 --> 00:15:22.720] You probably watched 100 animes.
[00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:25.760] The thing is, I can watch animes without going to Japan.
[00:15:25.760 --> 00:15:28.480] So it's very easy to just not go.
[00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:34.160] Courtland's going to visit in VR, and Tommy's actually VR experience is better than my real experience.
[00:15:34.160 --> 00:15:44.000] But anyway, Eric, I'm curious about, like, you went there and you were teaching English, but I did a little bit of research and saw, like, eventually you started looking for a software engineering job.
[00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:45.760] What was your experience with that?
[00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:48.320] Yeah, so I just did the English teaching for one year.
[00:15:48.320 --> 00:15:51.840] I pretty much time boxed myself on that, said, I'm going to do it.
[00:15:52.160 --> 00:15:58.320] But then at the end of that, I'm either going to have to go home or maybe move to Tokyo and find a software development job.
[00:15:58.320 --> 00:16:03.000] Because I just, you know, my engineering degree that I had kind of killed myself to get was getting stale.
[00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:05.240] I had not gotten any experience yet.
[00:16:05.640 --> 00:16:08.120] So I was like, you know, I'll give it a shot.
[00:16:08.120 --> 00:16:10.280] I'll go to Tokyo, see if I can find something.
[00:16:10.280 --> 00:16:15.880] And so yeah, I just had, I think, like $2,000 in my bank account, something like that.
[00:16:15.880 --> 00:16:18.440] And I got on a train basically.
[00:16:18.440 --> 00:16:21.400] I was in this small town before in Toyama Prefecture.
[00:16:21.400 --> 00:16:25.800] And I just moved to Tokyo and got this, like, the cheapest possible apartment I could find.
[00:16:25.800 --> 00:16:28.200] It was like me and two other guys in this room.
[00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:30.360] And that was like 500 bucks a month.
[00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:33.640] So I was like, all right, I have at least a couple months before I literally run out of money.
[00:16:33.640 --> 00:16:36.680] And I just went all in on literally searching for jobs.
[00:16:36.680 --> 00:16:39.960] And it was a struggle, especially back then.
[00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:42.920] I think the industry has improved a lot now, so it's a little bit easier.
[00:16:42.920 --> 00:16:45.160] But I had no experience, no visa.
[00:16:45.160 --> 00:16:48.120] So a company was going to have to sponsor me, no money, like I said.
[00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:51.640] So I had kind of a basically a couple months to make this happen.
[00:16:51.640 --> 00:16:55.800] And I got rejected probably by like 99% of the places that I applied.
[00:16:55.800 --> 00:16:58.840] So that was a struggle that was kind of depressing.
[00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:03.240] But eventually I, you know, I finally found this small Japanese startup.
[00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:05.080] It was about 40 people.
[00:17:05.080 --> 00:17:09.800] And they, you know, were willing to basically hire me as a Ruby developer.
[00:17:09.800 --> 00:17:10.840] So that wasn't even my plan.
[00:17:10.840 --> 00:17:12.360] I was trying to be like a mobile dev at that time.
[00:17:12.360 --> 00:17:16.520] I had built some like random Android apps and stuff, but I applied.
[00:17:16.520 --> 00:17:18.520] They're like, hey, we need a back-end person.
[00:17:18.600 --> 00:17:19.720] I was like, yeah, all right, sure.
[00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:21.240] I'll write some Ruby code.
[00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:24.440] And so I got my first programming job that way.
[00:17:24.440 --> 00:17:25.640] But yeah, it was a struggle.
[00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:29.080] And honestly, probably one of the most stressful periods of my life.
[00:17:29.080 --> 00:17:29.640] I can imagine.
[00:17:29.640 --> 00:17:32.040] So were you fluent in Japanese by that by that point?
[00:17:32.040 --> 00:17:33.640] And are you fluent now?
[00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:35.320] I am definitely fluent now.
[00:17:35.320 --> 00:17:39.160] At that point, I was already good enough to be doing interviews and stuff in Japanese.
[00:17:39.160 --> 00:17:46.000] So, since I was really focused more on like the Japanese, like small startup companies, they were all in Japanese.
[00:17:46.320 --> 00:17:54.160] So, even that job, first job that I got, I was working 100% in Japanese, which is kind of what I wanted at that point because I really wanted to work on the language a bit more.
[00:17:54.160 --> 00:18:01.440] I thought if I could get that programming experience while also learning the language, I would kind of be able to kill two birds with one stone, you know?
[00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:06.560] I can imagine, like, I think the experience of being scared, you know, like I'm going to run out of money, because I did the same thing.
[00:18:06.560 --> 00:18:09.920] I moved to San Francisco right out of college and I had like no money.
[00:18:09.920 --> 00:18:11.200] And I was like, oh, that doesn't matter.
[00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:14.640] I'll just build a successful startup because I was 22 and an idiot.
[00:18:15.760 --> 00:18:16.960] I was like, I can do it in three months.
[00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:17.840] It'll be fine.
[00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:28.800] But I can't imagine having that experience, but then having it in a different country where I'm like new to the language and there's also like not that many other foreigners in the country.
[00:18:28.800 --> 00:18:30.080] So I'm like pretty much alone.
[00:18:30.080 --> 00:18:31.600] Like, what was your plan?
[00:18:31.600 --> 00:18:34.400] You know, if you didn't, you got rejected by 99% of companies.
[00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:37.280] Like, what was your plan if this startup didn't hire you?
[00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:44.400] The plan was just to hopefully save enough for a return ticket home and then go back to my parents' house.
[00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:45.840] And then, yeah.
[00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:48.480] So I knew I wouldn't literally die.
[00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:52.960] I wouldn't, you know, on the streets of Tokyo because worst possible case, like I was just go back.
[00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:55.760] And at least for like, you know, some period of time, you know, live with my parents.
[00:18:55.760 --> 00:19:02.080] But it was like coming down to the wire though, because like I said, I had this visa that was about to run out and I had to get a new visa from the new company and everything.
[00:19:02.080 --> 00:19:14.880] And I just remember I was trying to build these side projects and like at night, I would literally be like in McDonald's, you know, drinking these 100 yen, like $1 coffees for like hours, just trying to build these crappy like Rails apps and stuff.
[00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:20.000] So I'd have something to show, like some code to show the companies and having some code on my GitHub and everything.
[00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:22.640] So I didn't know if it was going to work or not.
[00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:25.840] And, you know, I was getting to really like, you know, I had met some people in Tokyo and everything.
[00:19:25.840 --> 00:19:28.880] I wanted to stay there, but I knew I had to find a job.
[00:19:28.880 --> 00:19:30.600] So it really just came through at the last second.
[00:19:29.840 --> 00:19:36.040] Like when I was honestly starting to think about getting up, I had this, like, two or three interviews left and one of them kind of panned out.
[00:19:36.360 --> 00:19:38.760] So it was really just luck.
[00:19:38.760 --> 00:19:39.080] Yeah.
[00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:41.800] What is what is Japan's tech industry like, right?
[00:19:41.800 --> 00:19:46.360] So Cortland and I obviously were in San Francisco when we were looking for jobs in our mid-20s.
[00:19:46.360 --> 00:19:51.000] And it's like, you know, there's the Googles and the Facebooks and all those things.
[00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:55.960] But in 2013, 2014, what was that like for you?
[00:19:55.960 --> 00:20:00.360] I feel like in the US, developers are super respected.
[00:20:00.360 --> 00:20:02.360] They have a lot of power, right?
[00:20:02.520 --> 00:20:05.240] Just because the demand is so ridiculously high.
[00:20:05.240 --> 00:20:22.600] And Japan is a little bit behind, I would say, on the software, especially like kind of internet tech side of things, where there's not going to be this guarantee, really, where if you just choose a company and start working as like a software developer, that it's going to be a particularly good work environment.
[00:20:22.600 --> 00:20:27.720] In fact, the average case is actually probably not very good, I would say.
[00:20:27.720 --> 00:20:33.960] It's more of like these older school Japanese companies that don't really respect software as much.
[00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:39.000] They have this history of like kind of outsourcing and really being more focused on hardware.
[00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:44.840] Japan's really strong when it comes to hardware and manufacturing these things, but they haven't really embraced software nearly as much.
[00:20:44.840 --> 00:20:59.000] So it's just a matter of being a lot more careful and trying to find that kind of pocket of companies because there is like another kind of segment of the market where it is really like international companies and the more modern Japanese startups.
[00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:02.760] So if you just focus on that, you can actually have a pretty good situation here.
[00:21:02.760 --> 00:21:04.280] So that's what I tried to do.
[00:21:04.280 --> 00:21:07.560] And I was researching, kind of building out this list for myself.
[00:21:07.560 --> 00:21:09.880] I had just this Trello list of companies.
[00:21:09.880 --> 00:21:15.120] And when I found a good one or met someone at a meetup that was another foreigner and they said, oh, this place is good to work at.
[00:21:15.120 --> 00:21:18.800] I would kind of keep track of that for my own job search.
[00:21:18.800 --> 00:21:26.960] Yeah, there's a line on your website, actually, where you say that you started Japan Dev in part to improve the image of Japan's tech industry around the world.
[00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:36.640] And I think I have the same image that you're describing, that it's like a very conservative place that, like you said, on one hand, Japan is a highly technically advanced society.
[00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:41.200] They're leaders in electronics and manufacturing, entertainment, anime, as we've said.
[00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:43.520] But I can't even think of a single Japanese tech startup.
[00:21:43.520 --> 00:21:47.120] Like, I guess they have SoftBank, which is invested in some other tech stores.
[00:21:47.120 --> 00:21:52.640] But besides that, there are no Japanese startup mobile apps that I use or websites that I go to.
[00:21:53.360 --> 00:21:56.560] It's just not a leader in that space.
[00:21:56.560 --> 00:21:58.240] Why do you think that is?
[00:21:58.400 --> 00:21:59.520] Do you think it is the culture?
[00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:02.800] Like, why don't you think they respect software there?
[00:22:02.800 --> 00:22:05.600] And how are you sort of hoping to change that?
[00:22:05.600 --> 00:22:07.440] It's a really good question.
[00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:14.880] I think that back in the 70s and 80s, Japan had this period of miraculous economic growth, right?
[00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:28.240] Where they had companies like Sony and Toyota basically driving all this incredible amount of growth, where they basically rocketed to the top of the GDP rankings in the world, where they're like the second biggest economy in the world.
[00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:35.200] And that was thanks to a lot of this manufacturing, electronics, this hardware.
[00:22:35.840 --> 00:22:45.280] So I kind of think that it is a remnant of that because you can point to that and say, wow, look at this amazing result we had with these physical goods.
[00:22:45.280 --> 00:22:51.680] We created all these processes and things to make them more efficient and build them faster and better than everyone else.
[00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:53.840] And it was amazing for us.
[00:22:53.840 --> 00:22:57.920] And people, I think, still kind of remember that bubble era of like the 80s and 90s.
[00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:09.000] And I kind of feel like that has remained very strong because those are still kind of the same main tech companies that people talk about today is like Sony and Toshiba and these types of companies.
[00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:13.320] And there's just been a lot more focus on that side of the market, unfortunately.
[00:23:13.320 --> 00:23:19.240] And then I would say really in the past decade or so, finally, there has been a lot of growth on the startup side.
[00:23:19.240 --> 00:23:27.320] And you may not have heard of any of the kind of new wave of startups that have come out, but they are getting bigger and bigger, you know, more and more profitable.
[00:23:27.320 --> 00:23:29.480] Like there's a company called Mercari, for example.
[00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:31.800] They're actually reasonably well known in the US as well.
[00:23:31.800 --> 00:23:33.800] I worked for them for a few years.
[00:23:33.800 --> 00:23:38.600] And, you know, they had like a seven or eight billion dollar, I think, like IPO.
[00:23:38.600 --> 00:23:39.720] They were a unicorn.
[00:23:39.720 --> 00:23:41.720] So I think there's like 10 or so unicorns now.
[00:23:41.720 --> 00:23:44.520] Maybe even like six, seven years ago, there were literally none.
[00:23:44.520 --> 00:23:46.520] So it is growing.
[00:23:46.520 --> 00:23:57.560] You know, I'm hoping that we'll start to see more and more of those companies get bigger and bigger and have maybe like a Google or like a Facebook level company come out at some point, but it has not happened yet.
[00:23:57.560 --> 00:23:59.960] So you were working at Mercari.
[00:24:00.200 --> 00:24:06.200] It seemed like it was kind of a nail-biter situation where, you know, you really, really needed to get that job.
[00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:08.520] And I'm sure it was great to get the job.
[00:24:08.520 --> 00:24:17.000] But then what is it, five or so years later now, and you just posted an $83,000 a month milestone with your new company.
[00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:18.040] What happened, right?
[00:24:18.040 --> 00:24:22.520] Like, you said you were building some side projects to find that job.
[00:24:22.520 --> 00:24:27.000] Did you know at that point in time that you wanted to eventually try to build your own thing?
[00:24:27.160 --> 00:24:28.280] How did your wife come into this too?
[00:24:28.280 --> 00:24:29.640] Like, is this someone that you met in America?
[00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:32.160] Is it someone that you met in the States and like, what was this conversation like?
[00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:42.040] Where you're like, hey, we should start a tech startup in this extremely conservative tech industry where like, you know, risk-taking isn't exactly rewarded in Japan or looked upon very favorably.
[00:24:42.040 --> 00:24:44.440] So I'm curious about that part of the story too.
[00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:46.480] First of all, I did work at Mercari.
[00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:49.760] That was the last company that I worked at before I quit my job to go full-time though.
[00:24:49.760 --> 00:24:55.760] So there were a few job changes that happened between the company that I mentioned, that kind of tiny Japanese startup.
[00:24:55.760 --> 00:25:05.520] And, you know, each time I switched jobs, I would learn a little bit more about kind of tricks for finding the best jobs here, you know, interviewing, all that kind of stuff.
[00:25:05.520 --> 00:25:09.120] And was trying to get bigger, kind of more globally-minded companies each time.
[00:25:09.280 --> 00:25:14.800] So I took a few of those kind of steps until I reached Mercari, which was the last time I worked out.
[00:25:14.800 --> 00:25:17.280] And somewhere in there, I did meet my wife.
[00:25:17.280 --> 00:25:23.120] Actually, we met pretty soon after I moved to Tokyo and got that first tech job.
[00:25:23.120 --> 00:25:27.120] And yeah, she was one of my kind of first friends here in Tokyo.
[00:25:27.120 --> 00:25:31.360] I guess grew into a little bit more than that and ultimately got married.
[00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:35.440] It's not like we had this plan to start a startup together or anything like that.
[00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:38.960] It was more just I was getting more and more interested in that.
[00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:52.880] And, you know, it was really more that she agreed to kind of support my vision that I had for basically a job board that was the service that I wish had existed, you know, because I, like I said, I really struggled when it came to finding that first tech job.
[00:25:52.880 --> 00:26:01.680] And even subsequently, and I was like, you know, it'd be really cool if we had a job where those focused on the needs of people like me where you can go and see, does this company sponsor visas?
[00:26:01.680 --> 00:26:05.680] Are they, you know, do they have a kind of international environment, things like that?
[00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:09.840] And my wife kind of really shared my enthusiasm for that idea.
[00:26:09.840 --> 00:26:14.080] She thought it was a great, great business idea and basically agreed to help out with me.
[00:26:14.080 --> 00:26:18.880] There's a lot of people, I think, who are working jobs who want to transition to become an ND hacker.
[00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:20.400] And I think it's like a tough path to follow.
[00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:22.680] Like financially, how do you support yourself?
[00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:23.440] And socially?
[00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:25.360] You know, it's like not necessarily the most acceptable thing.
[00:26:25.360 --> 00:26:26.240] It's a big risk.
[00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:29.760] And I think a lot of people just get inspired sufficiently that they want to do it.
[00:26:29.960 --> 00:26:32.040] For you, like, where was that inspiration coming from?
[00:26:32.360 --> 00:26:36.040] Was it, you know, you were just generally inspired to start a startup and do your own thing?
[00:26:36.040 --> 00:26:41.240] Or was it specifically related to you just want to solve this problem to help people find jobs in Japan?
[00:26:41.240 --> 00:26:51.720] I think it was more that I was always kind of building side projects and never actually, you know, promoted them or made any money from them or anything.
[00:26:51.720 --> 00:26:56.520] But I always had some kind of like side coding project that I was building.
[00:26:56.520 --> 00:27:02.520] And I guess just in the back of my mind, I knew that one day I would like to try being an entrepreneur.
[00:27:02.520 --> 00:27:15.480] And as I was going through my career here in Japan, changing jobs every couple of years and like I said, learning more about the industry and that kind of thing, I guess I kind of zeroed in on this one idea.
[00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:20.360] And there were kind of a few false starts before I ended up actually building it for real.
[00:27:20.360 --> 00:27:26.280] Like I think the first version of the site that I ever actually built was back in like 2017 or so.
[00:27:26.280 --> 00:27:36.040] And that was basically just, like I said, I had this Trello board literally that I was maintaining of good companies that I thought were basically good places to work for people like me.
[00:27:36.040 --> 00:27:39.400] And I essentially took that and turned it into a website.
[00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:41.800] And there weren't even any jobs, actually.
[00:27:41.800 --> 00:27:44.920] The MVP that I originally built was just a list of companies.
[00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:55.080] So that, you know, that initial version, I did the typical developer thing, didn't show it to anyone, kind of just built it, just wanted to write the code, whatever, you know, and then stopped, dropped it.
[00:27:55.080 --> 00:27:59.080] And then, yeah, I actually didn't go back to it until about two years later.
[00:27:59.080 --> 00:27:59.960] I don't know why.
[00:27:59.960 --> 00:28:02.680] I think I was just kind of looking at my life.
[00:28:02.680 --> 00:28:07.240] At that point, I had actually switched from being a developer to a like an engineering manager.
[00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:12.680] And just thinking about my career and like whether I wanted to kind of continue on that path or try something else.
[00:28:12.680 --> 00:28:14.880] I realized that, yeah, I kind of want to do something else.
[00:28:14.520 --> 00:28:19.280] And I kind of came back to that idea and built it for real, rebuilt that site.
[00:28:19.360 --> 00:28:25.120] And again, it was still just like this job, not even a job board, it was like this glass door kind of like review site at first, actually.
[00:28:25.120 --> 00:28:26.160] So that was a mistake.
[00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:31.600] I didn't, I built what I thought other people would want, but really I was the only one who wanted it.
[00:28:31.600 --> 00:28:35.200] So that is one thing that I would tell people who are interested in trying to build a business.
[00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:36.480] Yes, scratch your own itch.
[00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:37.520] That's great.
[00:28:37.520 --> 00:28:40.080] Do try to make sure that other people have that itch too.
[00:28:40.080 --> 00:28:44.320] Because I don't know, for whatever reason, I was really into companies and learning about them.
[00:28:44.320 --> 00:28:49.120] And I had this like list of like 50 plus like companies and all this data about them and the stuff.
[00:28:49.120 --> 00:28:52.320] And other people don't do that, I realized.
[00:28:52.640 --> 00:28:58.080] For whatever reason, I was kind of going a lot deeper than that, than a lot of people would, and built it.
[00:28:58.080 --> 00:28:59.680] And I actually showed it to some people.
[00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:01.040] I tweeted it out.
[00:29:01.040 --> 00:29:04.160] And it got some initial buzz originally.
[00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:06.080] And some people were like, oh, that's really cool.
[00:29:06.080 --> 00:29:07.360] But where's the apply button?
[00:29:07.360 --> 00:29:08.480] Basically, was what it was.
[00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:10.080] Like, I want actual jobs.
[00:29:10.080 --> 00:29:13.360] Like, I don't want to go digging through all this information about these companies.
[00:29:13.360 --> 00:29:15.600] And so I pivoted toward being a job board.
[00:29:15.600 --> 00:29:21.360] I love that you're in this sort of career space, hiring space, job board space, because there's just a lot of money there.
[00:29:21.360 --> 00:29:26.160] And there's a lot of important decisions being made there that change people's lives, that change the nature of companies.
[00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:35.520] And so if you have something that doesn't quite work, like you had this idea that you thought would work, but it didn't quite work, it's easier to pivot into something that will work because you're in like a really good space.
[00:29:35.520 --> 00:29:43.440] It's like one of the things I tell indie hackers the most is like, look for a place or a space where people care a lot and where people spend a lot of money.
[00:29:43.440 --> 00:29:49.040] I think every indie hacker wants to build a product where people care so much that they're going to use their product and they're going to tell their friends about it.
[00:29:49.040 --> 00:29:52.960] Every indie hacker wants to build a business that people care about so much that they're going to pay money for it.
[00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:56.240] And I think the shortcut is just like, where is money changing hands?
[00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:56.480] Right.
[00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:02.840] And like the job sort of career industry is like, obviously, where a lot of money is changing hands because it's like companies are hiring people and paying their salaries.
[00:29:59.760 --> 00:30:06.600] Like it's hard to even imagine an area of the economy where there's like more money being spent.
[00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:12.760] And on the flip side, you have people like you who are like, you know, out there looking for jobs and like they're stressed about it.
[00:30:12.760 --> 00:30:13.400] It's emotional.
[00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:13.800] It's important.
[00:30:13.800 --> 00:30:15.800] It's going to change where they live and how they live.
[00:30:15.800 --> 00:30:17.960] And so like they care a ton about that.
[00:30:17.960 --> 00:30:28.520] And so I think it's like such a great place to build a business because like even if you mess up, you know that like you're only like one or two steps away from like doing something that has real value to people.
[00:30:28.840 --> 00:30:41.320] And that was one thing I thought about a lot was like kind of trying to think about the flow of money within the industry and you know how actually in Japan it's a little bit unique and it's mostly from recruiting firms more so than job boards.
[00:30:41.320 --> 00:30:47.880] And that's one of the reasons that I decided to do the kind of unique per hire model as well is to be a little bit closer to that.
[00:30:47.880 --> 00:30:53.960] But if you just look at the companies and you know a lot of that money is going to these recruiting firms essentially.
[00:30:53.960 --> 00:31:03.480] And when you look at how much they charge, it's kind of eye-opening actually because usually it's a percentage of a person's starting salary.
[00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:06.920] And in Japan, it's actually even higher than it would be in like the US, places like that.
[00:31:06.920 --> 00:31:08.760] It's like 30 to 35%.
[00:31:08.760 --> 00:31:09.160] Whoa.
[00:31:09.400 --> 00:31:10.600] So that's a lot.
[00:31:10.760 --> 00:31:12.680] And that coupled with the fact that, yeah.
[00:31:12.680 --> 00:31:17.400] So my idea also was to be curated and focus on kind of the top of the market as well.
[00:31:17.400 --> 00:31:30.920] So when you kind of couple those two things, it was like, I'm only, you know, really working with these good companies that pay a lot of money and they're primed to be paying like 30%, 35% of people's salaries.
[00:31:30.920 --> 00:31:33.160] So to me, that seemed like a huge opportunity.
[00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:41.640] It's like, even if I am, you know, less than that, I can still charge a lot per you know per hire and build a good business that way.
[00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:45.000] So, as far as pivots go, this is an interesting one, right?
[00:31:45.120 --> 00:31:52.000] Because you pivoted from basically like a company, like a company discovery platform to this job board.
[00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:57.200] And secretly, what that means is that you pivoted towards a two-sided marketplace, right?
[00:31:57.200 --> 00:31:59.680] Which is like notoriously difficult.
[00:31:59.920 --> 00:32:01.920] You have the cold start problem, right?
[00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:03.360] This chicken and egg problem.
[00:32:03.360 --> 00:32:11.280] So, even if you were better addressing the actual demand and the opportunities here, now you've got this problem of like cold starting.
[00:32:11.280 --> 00:32:12.320] So, what was that like?
[00:32:12.320 --> 00:32:15.440] You know, did it take a long time or did you figure out any secrets?
[00:32:15.760 --> 00:32:18.320] So, you're always going to run into this.
[00:32:18.320 --> 00:32:25.440] And one thing I tell people is if you do want to build a job board, then have a plan for the cold start problem, right?
[00:32:25.440 --> 00:32:31.920] Because it's this catch-22 where to get applicants, you need companies posting jobs, but to get companies posting jobs, you need applicants.
[00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:44.960] So, as I mentioned earlier, I did have this initial version of the site where it was basically just this glass door site where people go on and see, okay, here's 50 good companies or whatever, you know, vetted companies that I was kind of backing.
[00:32:44.960 --> 00:32:52.720] And that got enough buzz, I think, where when I started to reach out to these companies, they at least had seen the site once.
[00:32:53.360 --> 00:32:54.720] So, that was actually really nice.
[00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:59.760] But I do think actually the main hack that I used though was I was still working at the time.
[00:32:59.760 --> 00:33:03.120] I was a software developer myself, and I went to my own company.
[00:33:03.120 --> 00:33:07.760] And that is really powerful, actually, because it was my target customer.
[00:33:07.760 --> 00:33:11.200] And I already obviously had the network of people there who I knew.
[00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:17.360] So, I was able to just break into HR very easily and have kind of a frank discussion with them, like what kind of features would you need?
[00:33:17.360 --> 00:33:21.360] And obviously, it's just a little bit easier of like a sales pitch and everything when you know the people.
[00:33:21.360 --> 00:33:25.440] So, that was my first customer, actually, was this company in Recovery that I was working for.
[00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:28.320] Then, there's still the question of like, what about company number two and number three?
[00:33:28.320 --> 00:33:35.000] And I do think that initial bump in traffic that I had helped because I think HR people especially had at least seen the site once or twice.
[00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:36.120] They kind of knew the name.
[00:33:36.680 --> 00:33:40.360] So, it wasn't a completely kind of cold introduction then when I was trying to email them or whatever.
[00:33:40.360 --> 00:33:45.320] The second person I actually found on Reddit, they mentioned that they were like an HR person at one of these companies.
[00:33:45.320 --> 00:33:49.480] It was actually Indeed, which is a big presence here in Japan.
[00:33:49.480 --> 00:33:54.520] So, I DM'd them on Reddit and was able to get an interview with their HR people that way.
[00:33:54.520 --> 00:34:00.840] And it was really nice to be doing the model that I am doing because I'm a developer, not a salesperson.
[00:34:00.840 --> 00:34:09.560] And it made the pitch so much easier because it was basically a no-brainer where I could walk in and be like, Hey, I'm going to post your jobs on this site.
[00:34:09.880 --> 00:34:11.880] You're going to get a bunch of traffic from me.
[00:34:11.880 --> 00:34:15.480] I'm going to build out a company profile page as well, all in English, like native level.
[00:34:15.480 --> 00:34:18.040] Like, I've worked at these big companies here.
[00:34:18.040 --> 00:34:19.080] I know what we want.
[00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:21.720] I'm literally the target customer for it.
[00:34:21.720 --> 00:34:25.240] So, I'm going to build this out for you for free, no upfront cost whatsoever.
[00:34:25.240 --> 00:34:27.160] I'm going to make you look good, you know.
[00:34:27.160 --> 00:34:27.480] Right.
[00:34:27.720 --> 00:34:30.920] And you're not going to pay me unless someone actually joins.
[00:34:30.920 --> 00:34:35.560] And even if that happens, it's still going to be less than you're currently paying these recruiters, right?
[00:34:35.880 --> 00:34:43.800] So, that was the only way I was really able to get them to agree was like to make the pitch such a no-brainer that they just couldn't really come up with reasons to say no.
[00:34:44.120 --> 00:34:45.240] So, that was a big part of it.
[00:34:45.240 --> 00:34:46.360] And that's how I got my second company.
[00:34:46.520 --> 00:34:47.720] I just went and talked to them.
[00:34:47.720 --> 00:34:51.080] And I had this kind of warm intro from someone literally on Reddit.
[00:34:51.080 --> 00:34:53.800] And once I had those two companies, I think the third one was a lot easier.
[00:34:53.800 --> 00:35:00.040] And then from there, after I four or five, and they were pretty well-known companies, then it just got a lot easier.
[00:35:00.040 --> 00:35:05.400] Ultimately, I also got some testimonials, which took it kind of to the next level to the point where, like it's it's not even difficult now.
[00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:08.440] Um, I get most of my new companies now from like Inbound.
[00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:11.320] Um, I don't even really go out and like search out companies anymore.
[00:35:11.320 --> 00:35:14.320] Maybe occasionally, if I find if I hear about a new company, it's like really cool.
[00:35:14.200 --> 00:35:17.920] But uh, now that that part, that side is not a problem at all.
[00:35:18.240 --> 00:35:22.320] The other side of the applicants, yeah, that was the problem.
[00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:23.040] Right, right.
[00:35:23.040 --> 00:35:24.880] So that took kind of, yeah.
[00:35:25.200 --> 00:35:29.280] So I had some companies now at this point and some jobs actually on the platform.
[00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:35.120] So if someone were to go on the site, we had that apply button, you could actually get value as a customer.
[00:35:35.120 --> 00:35:42.160] But that process of actually gathering more and more applicants took way longer.
[00:35:42.160 --> 00:35:45.440] And that was an absolute, like a real struggle for us.
[00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:56.240] And actually, I think from the time when I got our first signed contract with the company and the first jobs posted to the time that we actually got the first payment was about 12 months.
[00:35:56.240 --> 00:35:58.880] So basically a straight year of 12 months.
[00:35:58.880 --> 00:36:00.240] Yes, exactly.
[00:36:00.240 --> 00:36:09.280] And the fact that I had contracts meant that I was already, you know, it was a business and I had to, you know, listen to the demands of these companies, right?
[00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:13.600] Because they're, well, in theory, they had a contract to pay me as long as they hired someone, right?
[00:36:13.600 --> 00:36:16.240] And so the amount of work was increasing.
[00:36:16.240 --> 00:36:21.120] And I was still working as a, you know, an engineering manager, managing a team basically at one of these companies.
[00:36:21.120 --> 00:36:22.560] So I would basically work a full day.
[00:36:22.560 --> 00:36:23.920] I'd wake up, have 9 a.m.
[00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:26.720] meetings, all that kind of stuff, do my full day as a manager.
[00:36:26.720 --> 00:36:30.000] And then I would like finish, be like, oh, okay, it's over.
[00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:31.520] And then my wife would be like, all right, ready?
[00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:35.280] Ready to start work day number two at Japan Dev.
[00:36:35.600 --> 00:36:37.760] And I was like, oh, yeah, okay.
[00:36:37.760 --> 00:36:38.480] That's insane.
[00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:40.480] And so, yeah, literally, we did that for 12 months.
[00:36:40.640 --> 00:36:44.480] I love that there could be that 12-month lag, right?
[00:36:44.480 --> 00:36:45.600] Like you have this marketplace.
[00:36:45.600 --> 00:36:47.600] It's the cold start problem, like the chicken and the eggs.
[00:36:47.600 --> 00:36:48.560] Like, how do you get both parts?
[00:36:48.560 --> 00:36:54.800] But, like, if you do the supply side first and you have this awesome pitch to them, that's like they can't really say no to, they don't care how long it takes you.
[00:36:54.800 --> 00:37:00.680] Like, at some point, you're finding them customers, and that gives you the time to kind of do one side and then move to the other side.
[00:37:00.680 --> 00:37:03.080] At least they didn't churn, but yeah, yeah.
[00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:05.400] And then I also love that you started with like sales.
[00:37:05.640 --> 00:37:09.960] I think a lot of indie hackers have the opposite sort of mindset and intuition.
[00:37:09.960 --> 00:37:11.640] They think, oh, I'm a software engineer.
[00:37:11.640 --> 00:37:15.880] The thing I'm the worst at in the world is calling anyone or messaging anyone and doing sales.
[00:37:15.880 --> 00:37:16.680] Like, that's impossible.
[00:37:16.680 --> 00:37:19.080] And I certainly can't sell to like a really big company.
[00:37:19.080 --> 00:37:23.320] Like, what I need to do is find lots of individuals to sell to you, and I'll do marketing.
[00:37:23.640 --> 00:37:26.040] It turns out that is actually the hard part.
[00:37:26.040 --> 00:37:30.680] Getting thousands of people to your website, super duper hard, takes years for a lot of people.
[00:37:31.320 --> 00:37:39.560] DMing a few companies, sending some cold emails, having a few phone calls, almost anyone can do with really no experience.
[00:37:39.560 --> 00:37:41.000] And it's kind of shocking.
[00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:48.520] Like, I don't want to say that it's easy, but like, I've had experiences when I was selling ads for indie hackers where I would call up companies with no sales experience.
[00:37:48.520 --> 00:37:52.920] And then, like, an hour later, I would have made $5,000 because, like, yeah, we'll buy an ad on your podcast.
[00:37:52.920 --> 00:37:55.400] And I've had friends, my friend Lynn, who started Key Values.
[00:37:55.400 --> 00:38:00.040] It's kind of similar to your first idea where it's kind of a job board, but based on, you know, more glass door vibe.
[00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:03.400] She did the same thing, same process as you called up a bunch of companies.
[00:38:03.400 --> 00:38:05.880] The first few were like, oh, okay, I guess we don't have anything to lose.
[00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:09.160] And then after she had five or ten, it's super easy because she's all these brand names.
[00:38:09.160 --> 00:38:11.080] And everyone's like, our competitors are doing it.
[00:38:11.160 --> 00:38:12.520] Like, sure, we'll do it too.
[00:38:12.520 --> 00:38:18.600] And so I think starting with that sales approach is so much better for indie hackers than starting with trying to find thousands of users.
[00:38:18.600 --> 00:38:19.960] But eventually we had to do that.
[00:38:19.960 --> 00:38:22.760] At some point, you have to find the applicants.
[00:38:22.760 --> 00:38:24.760] And that's when it actually becomes a business.
[00:38:24.760 --> 00:38:27.000] Until then, it's not, you know what I mean?
[00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:32.760] People, you might think it is because you have so much code written or whatever it is, but nope, not a business until you have a customer.
[00:38:32.760 --> 00:38:36.120] But first of all, I love that episode with Lynn from Key Values.
[00:38:36.120 --> 00:38:41.400] That was actually one of the companies that we definitely looked at when we were first kind of deciding how to build the site and everything.
[00:38:41.400 --> 00:38:43.160] And I think I just done it wrong enough times.
[00:38:43.160 --> 00:38:53.200] Like, I mentioned that I have always kind of been building stuff on the side and doing the usual mistake of the software developer where I am building it, showing it to no one.
[00:38:53.200 --> 00:38:56.320] It just dies because, of course, I lose motivation, it's not earning any money.
[00:38:56.320 --> 00:38:58.240] No one's giving me feedback on it.
[00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:01.360] And then I did that probably five, six, seven times.
[00:39:01.360 --> 00:39:11.200] And this time I was like, all right, you know, I listened to things like Indie Hackers, you know, and I think I realized finally, like, okay, in order to actually do this, then we need to go out and talk to some people.
[00:39:11.200 --> 00:39:12.480] It was still incredibly scary.
[00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:14.800] I still did a horrible job at first.
[00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:24.160] Like, when I go back and look at the cold LinkedIn, LinkedIn messages and stuff that I was sending, I cringe so hard because they're like absurdly long.
[00:39:24.160 --> 00:39:26.000] There's no way anyone would ever actually read these.
[00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:26.800] They're so long.
[00:39:26.800 --> 00:39:30.000] You know, talking all about the service, not talking about the customer at all.
[00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:31.040] They're not benefit driven.
[00:39:31.040 --> 00:39:32.960] It's just like, we're building this really cool thing.
[00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:35.040] Like, here's why it's like so awesome, you know.
[00:39:35.040 --> 00:39:38.800] And like, no, like multiple CTAs, you know, it's just terrible.
[00:39:38.800 --> 00:39:42.240] I broke every possible sales rule, and it's amazing that anyone even responded.
[00:39:42.240 --> 00:39:45.360] I love that, though, because you could break all those rules and it works.
[00:39:45.360 --> 00:39:51.200] Like, you did it, you did it all wrong, and it still worked, which is so encouraging to other people who are just getting started.
[00:39:51.200 --> 00:39:56.880] I feel like your business matches up really closely with one of my favorite strategies for starting a business, which I've talked about a couple times.
[00:39:57.040 --> 00:40:00.000] It's a strategy that I use for indie hackers, which got acquired by Stripe.
[00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:02.720] It's a strategy that Peter Levels used for Nomad List.
[00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:06.320] He's making millions of dollars a year in revenue from that, and it's spin-off products.
[00:40:06.720 --> 00:40:14.160] Same strategy that Lynn Ty used in Key Values, which I think she makes like around 400 grand a year with Key Values, and it's just her, no employees.
[00:40:14.160 --> 00:40:17.920] And I think if you go through this process, you have a pretty good chance of building a profitable business.
[00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:22.160] So, I want to share it with you, and you tell me what you think and whether it applies to you.
[00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:23.840] It's kind of a three-step process.
[00:40:23.840 --> 00:40:30.920] So, the first step is you notice something in your life that's important to you and where you're doing a lot of research.
[00:40:30.920 --> 00:40:34.440] So, in my case, I wanted to start a bootstrap company that was important to me.
[00:40:29.360 --> 00:40:38.920] I started doing a ton of research to find other people who had done this so I can learn as much as I could.
[00:40:39.320 --> 00:40:46.760] In your case, like you wanted a job in Japan, so you're doing all this research, looking at all these different companies, you're applying, getting really familiar because it's just a lot to take in.
[00:40:46.760 --> 00:40:52.520] Or in Peter Levels' case, he was a digital nomad, and he was doing a ton of research about places to go and live and be a nomad.
[00:40:52.680 --> 00:40:59.480] He wanted to know how safe it was, and what the cost of living was and how fast the internet was, and that just required a ton of different research all over the web.
[00:40:59.480 --> 00:41:00.760] So, that's step one.
[00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:04.200] Step two is you got to take all your research, you got to make it presentable.
[00:41:04.200 --> 00:41:08.200] And that means, like, number one, other people have to care about this research, it can't just be you.
[00:41:08.200 --> 00:41:14.040] But then, step you know, two involves you need to put it on a website somewhere, you know, in a list or a grid format.
[00:41:14.040 --> 00:41:16.120] I think the grid's pretty for like, you know, pretty popular.
[00:41:16.120 --> 00:41:19.000] ND hackers in its early days is just a grid of interviews.
[00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:21.000] Nomad list is a grid of cities.
[00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:23.560] Japan Dev is sort of a grid of just jobs.
[00:41:23.800 --> 00:41:25.320] And what's important really isn't the grid.
[00:41:25.480 --> 00:41:31.960] What's important is that you know your target audience and what they want, so that your research, when you put it online, is formatted in a way that gives it to them.
[00:41:31.960 --> 00:41:38.280] And then you have step three, which I think is the hard part, which is what we're about to talk about, which is you got to distribute it, it's got to be discoverable.
[00:41:38.280 --> 00:41:47.960] So, it's not good enough for you just to have this all on the web, but you need to somehow get it out there in front of people who are doing the research that you were trying to do.
[00:41:47.960 --> 00:41:51.320] But now, when they're doing that research, they'll stumble across your thing, hopefully.
[00:41:51.320 --> 00:41:56.360] And so, with ND Hackers, I knew that, like, hey, everyone who wants to do this is looking at hacker news, so I'll post it there.
[00:41:56.520 --> 00:42:04.360] With Nomad List, I think Peter Levels is in all these different basically Twitter threads where he's posting Nomad Lists and like these different articles or targeted digital nomads.
[00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:06.600] And so, people who are doing research would find his website.
[00:42:06.600 --> 00:42:08.600] And with you, like you mentioned, SEO, right?
[00:42:08.600 --> 00:42:12.680] If I'm trying to find a job in Japan and I'm, you know, a foreigner, what do I do?
[00:42:12.680 --> 00:42:16.960] Like, I did research by going to Google and searching for it, just like I did earlier.
[00:42:17.200 --> 00:42:19.760] And like, that's where you need to be for people to find you.
[00:42:14.840 --> 00:42:21.120] So I do want to dive into that.
[00:42:21.280 --> 00:42:24.240] Like, how do you execute this third step of the process?
[00:42:24.240 --> 00:42:28.080] Like, how did you get yourself found by Google?
[00:42:28.080 --> 00:42:30.560] Well, first of all, I think that framework is totally on point.
[00:42:30.560 --> 00:42:32.000] Like, that's exactly what I did.
[00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:39.120] And like you said, the third step was definitely the hardest for me since I had never really done any marketing.
[00:42:39.120 --> 00:42:48.240] And unfortunately, it was also the slowest because I was relying, I would say the main distribution channel that we ended up using was SEO, especially Google.
[00:42:48.240 --> 00:42:55.280] Because like you said, that is pretty much where the traffic comes from for this kind of needs that I am focused on.
[00:42:55.280 --> 00:43:02.640] So, you know, a big part of that was just writing blog content, basically related topics to getting jobs.
[00:43:02.640 --> 00:43:06.800] I mean, because the job board itself, those pages will target keywords.
[00:43:06.800 --> 00:43:18.320] Like, you know, if you search like Python jobs in Japan or PHP jobs in Japan, those kind of, I created pages, separate pages basically to cover all of those for all the different programming languages and that kind of thing.
[00:43:18.320 --> 00:43:25.440] And then the next step was just basically writing content for our blog, which answered questions that people like me would have.
[00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:30.160] So, you know, one of the most popular ones I had early on was the salary guide that I wrote.
[00:43:30.160 --> 00:43:33.440] I was like focused really on these like more international companies.
[00:43:33.440 --> 00:43:40.480] And here's what you can actually earn as a software developer, you know, based on the level that your seniority and all that kind of thing.
[00:43:40.800 --> 00:43:44.880] And another one was just an overall guide that I had for like moving to Japan as a software developer.
[00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:59.200] So I was writing lots of blog posts and also just the page structure matters a lot as well, making sure you have kind of separate pages, like I said, rather than just like one big page that is going to be only hiring, you know, only really targeting one or two keywords.
[00:43:59.200 --> 00:44:00.600] So that was something that I learned.
[00:43:59.920 --> 00:44:03.960] Peter Levis, who mentioned, is another good example of this with Nomad List.
[00:44:04.120 --> 00:44:08.360] He has like tens of thousands of pages, I'm pretty sure, because each filter is its own page.
[00:44:08.360 --> 00:44:10.200] And I read this article about that and I go, oh, wow, I see.
[00:44:10.200 --> 00:44:12.120] So you got to split the pages up.
[00:44:12.120 --> 00:44:13.320] And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of...
[00:44:13.320 --> 00:44:15.400] other stuff I did like posting on the Google Jobs.
[00:44:15.400 --> 00:44:20.600] Yeah, like the Google Jobs Network already, there's this feature where it'll show the jobs in the search engine result.
[00:44:20.600 --> 00:44:24.120] So adding the markup to enable that gave me a pretty good boost actually in traffic.
[00:44:24.120 --> 00:44:26.360] I guess those are probably the main things that I was doing for SEO.
[00:44:26.360 --> 00:44:28.840] But the problem is that it is slow.
[00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:30.520] It compounds.
[00:44:30.520 --> 00:44:37.240] And you change something and you see the fruits of that literally three to like six months later.
[00:44:37.240 --> 00:44:39.240] So that is why I had this really long lag time.
[00:44:39.240 --> 00:44:46.680] And during that time, I was definitely improving the UX and everything as well to just make it super easy to find the apply button.
[00:44:46.680 --> 00:44:49.240] And the other thing, I guess, was the email list.
[00:44:49.240 --> 00:44:54.680] I didn't know this at first when I first put the site, but for job boards, I would say it's a big thing right now.
[00:44:54.680 --> 00:44:57.400] You really need to be collecting emails from the start.
[00:44:57.400 --> 00:45:03.880] And I got better and better at kind of sending those emails and figuring out how to write a compelling email to those people when I would post new jobs.
[00:45:04.120 --> 00:45:05.240] So I was doing that myself.
[00:45:05.240 --> 00:45:06.920] Kind of learning that copywriting as well.
[00:45:06.920 --> 00:45:10.760] And those were kind of the two biggest distribution channels that we had.
[00:45:10.760 --> 00:45:15.240] Of course, posting on social media as well, especially Twitter and LinkedIn, I would say.
[00:45:15.240 --> 00:45:17.000] LinkedIn actually worked quite well.
[00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:20.600] After a year, basically, it started to pay off.
[00:45:20.840 --> 00:45:23.560] And then from there, things got a lot easier.
[00:45:23.560 --> 00:45:25.400] What was that journey like emotionally?
[00:45:25.400 --> 00:45:29.640] Because I think a lot of indie hackers are in this state where they're trying to make their thing work.
[00:45:29.640 --> 00:45:30.440] They built a website.
[00:45:30.440 --> 00:45:31.160] They built the product.
[00:45:31.160 --> 00:45:32.200] They're trying to get customers.
[00:45:32.200 --> 00:45:33.480] It's not working.
[00:45:33.480 --> 00:45:35.640] And they get discouraged and quit.
[00:45:35.680 --> 00:45:40.760] You know, most people will quit after a month or two of writing articles, and it's not generating a lot of traffic.
[00:45:40.760 --> 00:45:45.040] Most people will definitely quit after like four months, or six months, or eight months, or 11 months.
[00:45:44.920 --> 00:45:46.160] Like, you made it like a year.
[00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:48.160] Like, what kept you going?
[00:45:48.160 --> 00:45:50.400] And how do you keep going in that situation?
[00:45:51.120 --> 00:45:57.600] One thing that actually helped was COVID because I didn't have to commute to the office anymore.
[00:45:57.600 --> 00:46:00.960] And I kind of just needed something to do, to be honest.
[00:46:00.960 --> 00:46:07.520] Where, I mean, at least here in Japan, like things were pretty locked down for like kind of that year that I was struggling.
[00:46:07.520 --> 00:46:09.760] So it was kind of nice to have it.
[00:46:09.760 --> 00:46:18.320] That doesn't mean it wasn't a struggle because it was definitely exasperating to see like the numbers go up and more and more people apply.
[00:46:18.320 --> 00:46:23.680] You know, I had more and more kind of high-quality jobs, and yet we still just weren't earning any actual money.
[00:46:23.680 --> 00:46:33.280] And if it weren't for, you know, being at home and not going out anyway, which kind of just being stuck there regardless, I probably would have ended up quitting.
[00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:39.200] But yeah, we were able to keep going just long enough to finally get our first actual payment from a company.
[00:46:39.200 --> 00:46:41.760] And then from there, we kind of had that as extra motivation.
[00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:43.840] We're like, okay, it works.
[00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:44.720] We've got to scale it.
[00:46:44.720 --> 00:46:46.720] Obviously, we've got to keep doing what we're doing.
[00:46:46.720 --> 00:46:50.800] You know, we have work to do yet, but this is viable.
[00:46:50.800 --> 00:46:55.440] There's these success stories of job boards, but the vast majority of people that started job boards have failed.
[00:46:55.600 --> 00:46:57.200] So what do you think you know that they don't know?
[00:46:57.200 --> 00:47:00.960] You know, what are people who's starting job boards doing wrong?
[00:47:01.280 --> 00:47:03.360] So there are so many job boards now.
[00:47:03.360 --> 00:47:07.840] And I've actually heard people say that they're kind of played out at this point.
[00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:10.400] They don't recommend creating job boards.
[00:47:10.400 --> 00:47:17.760] And I actually think there's still a lot of potential personally, but I do think you definitely need to niche down.
[00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:21.680] I don't think you should create another like remote job board at this point.
[00:47:21.680 --> 00:47:23.200] I wouldn't recommend doing that.
[00:47:23.440 --> 00:47:25.280] So definitely choose a niche.
[00:47:25.280 --> 00:47:32.840] And from there, I do feel like there is still this playbook that has worked relatively well for me where you do have the cold start problem, as you mentioned.
[00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:34.680] So having a way to get past that.
[00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:40.360] And a way that a lot of people do it is to just crawl jobs so that they already have the supply.
[00:47:40.360 --> 00:47:42.040] And then that attracts users.
[00:47:42.040 --> 00:47:58.120] And if that is like focused and it's like curated, I still think there's a ton of value in just taking the like sea of jobs that exist and saying, okay, I went through and I did the research for you and I found these good ones or these ones that fulfill this criteria so that you don't have to basically.
[00:47:58.120 --> 00:47:59.000] And here they are.
[00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:10.520] So if you do that combined with like some crawling to just get the jobs, because normally companies don't necessarily mind when you do that, they have these applicant tracking systems that have APIs, in fact, that you can kind of just crawl that data from pretty easily.
[00:48:10.520 --> 00:48:12.360] That's what most people are doing these days.
[00:48:12.840 --> 00:48:24.280] So as long as you do that and then really focus on SEO, make it really optimized, like I said, separate pages for all the different keywords and stuff, post it on Google Jobs, basically all those things that I did.
[00:48:24.280 --> 00:48:25.800] I think that that will still work.
[00:48:25.800 --> 00:48:28.120] And then, yeah, you just really need to go hard on the marketing side of things.
[00:48:28.120 --> 00:48:29.240] Make sure you're sharing it.
[00:48:29.240 --> 00:48:32.680] So yeah, I'm actually still very bullish on job boards in general.
[00:48:32.680 --> 00:48:40.840] In fact, I just started a new job board because I was kind of getting a little bit lonely over here in Japan, just having this kind of Japan-specific product.
[00:48:40.840 --> 00:48:43.720] And I wanted to try building something more for the international market.
[00:48:43.720 --> 00:48:46.280] So I actually am bootstrapping this new job board now.
[00:48:46.280 --> 00:48:48.680] It's a work in progress, but it's called rocketships.io.
[00:48:48.680 --> 00:48:56.760] So it's basically a job board for mid-stage companies in this kind of growth period between small startup and big established company.
[00:48:56.760 --> 00:49:00.360] With the idea basically being that these are the companies that are kind of growing the fastest.
[00:49:00.360 --> 00:49:03.480] They have the best risk reward because they have kind of the best of both worlds.
[00:49:03.800 --> 00:49:05.640] Sometimilar to Breakout list, if you've seen that, yeah.
[00:49:05.680 --> 00:49:11.080] The breakout list, or like on this other podcast, Microsoft Million, they talked about this concept against Sarah's list.
[00:49:11.080 --> 00:49:13.280] I don't know if you've, yeah, if you heard that, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
[00:49:13.160 --> 00:49:13.360] Yeah.
[00:49:13.480 --> 00:49:15.000] So I built a job board for that.
[00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:23.520] And my idea now is basically to take my playbook from Japan Dev, just apply all that stuff, and see how that goes for like US slash international market.
[00:49:23.520 --> 00:49:25.600] I love that the idea of Sarah's List.
[00:49:25.760 --> 00:50:47.640] kind of underexplored like way to make money in life essentially it's like you if you if you go online and you google like oh what what job should i get you know you're gonna get like you should be an engineer or you should be a doctor what about a lawyer or a plumber you're gonna like the most generic thing um but if you ask around on twitter you ask people in the know you ask like people who are in the industry they'll tell you about these like unique paths that can make you a lot of money like oh you could be an indie hacker or you could work part-time job save up your money then invest in real estate like or you could like go to the tech industry and look for these rocket ship companies that are undervalued at the time and if you pick well get a lot of stock and like become a millionaire just by working a normal job right which is what sarah uh sampar's wife did so that's such a cool job board idea i'm curious about the business model so like you mentioned earlier your business model is that you essentially only charge companies when they actually make a placement similar to a recruiter um but you're not a recruiter so you're not like hand-holding the applicants through the process no so it the product is a job board and it's monetized kind of like a recruiting firm how do you ensure companies pay because i imagine like you know that year long where you're like okay people are coming to my website i'm trying to get you know applicants like but i'm not making any money like maybe the companies are hiring people and just not telling you because there's really doesn't seem to be a way to enforce that and yet like here you are like clearly they are telling you and paying you how does that how does that work that is a very good question.
[00:50:47.640 --> 00:50:55.000] And as time went on, I basically created more and more ways to prevent that and keep companies honest.
[00:50:55.000 --> 00:51:01.800] So the first way that i do it is in the contract that i make them sign, there is a late fee and it increases the longer that they go without paying.
[00:51:02.040 --> 00:51:03.560] That's kind of the first line of defense.
[00:51:03.560 --> 00:51:09.000] The next thing is that I keep track of all the applicants.
[00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:10.280] So we have two ways of applying.
[00:51:10.280 --> 00:51:13.960] You can either go through email, in which case I have your resume and your email and all that kind of stuff.
[00:51:13.960 --> 00:51:20.760] So I know exactly who you are, or they can link directly to their like ATS, their applicant tracking system that they have.
[00:51:20.760 --> 00:51:24.760] And if I use that way, then I basically show a modal and I force everyone.
[00:51:24.760 --> 00:51:29.800] It's like a fairly strict modal where they all have to put in like some data, like email name, and a link.
[00:51:29.800 --> 00:51:32.760] Like usually it's like a GitHub or LinkedIn URL.
[00:51:32.760 --> 00:51:34.920] So that is the kind of next way.
[00:51:35.240 --> 00:51:37.000] I kind of have that data at the very least.
[00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:43.720] So then I can look at that and say, okay, this company has had all these applicants and they haven't hired anyone yet.
[00:51:43.720 --> 00:51:44.360] That's kind of weird.
[00:51:44.360 --> 00:51:45.800] So I can use that as a heuristic.
[00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:53.000] And then I do have one other kind of thing that I do, which is I have this actually this gift card now that I give away.
[00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:54.760] So I have this form actually on the site.
[00:51:54.920 --> 00:52:01.480] You'll notice there's a button that says like, you know, joined a company through Japan Dev or whatever, they found a job.
[00:52:01.480 --> 00:52:05.320] So on there, you can click and you can basically tell me about a job that you found.
[00:52:05.320 --> 00:52:08.840] And then I send you a like a 3,000 yen Amazon gift card.
[00:52:08.840 --> 00:52:14.120] So just as another incentive and also to kind of show companies and be like, hey, I'm asking them to send this.
[00:52:14.120 --> 00:52:26.440] So yeah, if I have all that data, so I can also just go back to, like I said, if a company is kind of looking a little suspicious and I can kind of do some crawling or at least look at people's LinkedIns, talk to some people, that kind of thing as well.
[00:52:26.440 --> 00:52:32.440] In practice, I actually think that the community is so small that companies don't really want to burn bridges.
[00:52:32.440 --> 00:52:38.520] And since, like I said, they are used to paying these high fees for recruiters, it's not that expensive to begin with.
[00:52:38.520 --> 00:52:40.440] Like they're already getting a pretty decent deal.
[00:52:40.440 --> 00:52:47.520] So I don't think it's really worth burning that relationship with us over that and not being able to use the service anymore.
[00:52:47.520 --> 00:52:49.360] So I think that keeps them relatively honest.
[00:52:49.360 --> 00:52:52.560] And if not, then I have a few other kind of tactics that I use.
[00:52:52.560 --> 00:52:53.440] That's awesome.
[00:52:53.440 --> 00:52:55.920] Well, Eric, this has been really cool.
[00:52:55.920 --> 00:53:00.640] You mentioned you, I think two months ago, you were at 83K, and then you kind of had a down month.
[00:53:00.640 --> 00:53:03.920] So I'm hoping for a 100K month for next month.
[00:53:03.920 --> 00:53:04.320] Me too.
[00:53:05.840 --> 00:53:08.640] Meanwhile, obviously you've had a lot of experience.
[00:53:08.640 --> 00:53:11.360] You've learned a ton, but a lot of our listeners are new.
[00:53:11.360 --> 00:53:14.000] So what's your advice for people who are just starting out?
[00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:22.240] Yeah, I kind of alluded to this earlier, but I think if I could concentrate my advice into one thing, it would be find a customer.
[00:53:22.240 --> 00:53:26.640] Because when you don't have a customer, you don't have a business, right?
[00:53:26.640 --> 00:53:32.640] And before that point, there are like an infinite number of things that you could do, all these things that you could optimize.
[00:53:32.640 --> 00:53:33.840] You know, you could write code.
[00:53:33.840 --> 00:53:35.520] I made this mistake myself.
[00:53:35.520 --> 00:53:46.240] I literally was building this Kubernetes cluster for six months, all these APIs and stuff for ultimately, like a product that no one really wanted.
[00:53:46.240 --> 00:53:49.600] And it's so easy to just do that and be in their kind of comfort zone.
[00:53:49.600 --> 00:53:52.240] You know, I was a programmer, so I just wanted to write code.
[00:53:52.240 --> 00:54:00.720] But then if you just say, okay, forget that, close the laptop, you know, whatever, commit your code, quit trying to mess with the design or whatever, it's fine.
[00:54:00.720 --> 00:54:01.840] You don't need a logo.
[00:54:01.840 --> 00:54:06.160] Just literally get on the phone, talk to some people, and just get a customer.
[00:54:06.160 --> 00:54:13.520] Because from that point on, once you have that, then everything, all that kind of like uncertainty, all the other unimportant things kind of fall away.
[00:54:13.520 --> 00:54:20.160] And you can just focus on what matters, which is that customer, getting the next customer and, you know, scaling from there.
[00:54:20.160 --> 00:54:23.600] And you'll see like what actually matters in a business, right?
[00:54:23.600 --> 00:54:26.800] And it goes from being a project to really like an actual business.
[00:54:26.800 --> 00:54:28.760] And so that is the one thing that I would just tell people to do.
[00:54:28.760 --> 00:54:32.840] It's like not next week, not next month, today, right now.
[00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:34.680] Literally, just go get a customer right now.
[00:54:34.840 --> 00:54:37.800] And I think that's the most beneficial thing you can possibly do.
[00:54:37.800 --> 00:54:39.320] Go get a customer right now.
[00:54:39.320 --> 00:54:42.040] Eric Turner, thanks a ton for coming on the show.
[00:54:42.360 --> 00:54:50.360] Can you let listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and about your new job board and also about Japan Dev?
[00:54:51.000 --> 00:54:54.520] Yeah, so my main project is japandev.com.
[00:54:54.520 --> 00:54:56.520] Yeah, there's a hyphen, but even if you forget, it's okay.
[00:54:56.520 --> 00:54:57.400] I have both.
[00:54:57.720 --> 00:55:02.680] And then rocketships.io is the other one if you are looking for a job.
[00:55:02.840 --> 00:55:07.480] Right now, kind of a state between like a prototype and actually useful, but there are already some jobs and stuff.
[00:55:07.480 --> 00:55:13.800] So if you want to see a list of companies where I think there's a better kind of risk-reward profile, yeah, check that out.
[00:55:13.800 --> 00:55:15.320] Otherwise, just hit me up on Twitter.
[00:55:15.480 --> 00:55:17.720] It's underscore et dev.
[00:55:17.880 --> 00:55:18.920] ET Dev was taken.
[00:55:18.920 --> 00:55:21.640] That's where I, that's what I am on everything else, like GitHub and everything.
[00:55:21.640 --> 00:55:24.440] But yeah, twitter.com/slash underscore et dev.
[00:55:24.440 --> 00:55:28.600] And also, if you're in Tokyo, I know a lot of people are coming right now because the borders are opening up and everything.
[00:55:28.600 --> 00:55:32.280] Hit me up because I'm always looking to meet other indie hackers.
[00:55:32.280 --> 00:55:34.120] 100 yen was a dollar when you were in McDonald's.
[00:55:34.120 --> 00:55:36.040] You just checked 168 cents.
[00:55:36.040 --> 00:55:37.000] I'm going to come and just buy it.
[00:55:37.240 --> 00:55:38.360] Isn't that insane?
[00:55:39.320 --> 00:55:39.960] It's ridiculous.
[00:55:39.960 --> 00:55:41.800] It's such a good deal right now, seriously.
[00:55:42.200 --> 00:55:42.600] Yeah.
[00:55:42.600 --> 00:55:43.640] Well, I'll see you out there.
[00:55:43.640 --> 00:55:44.920] Thanks so much, Eric, for coming on.
[00:55:44.920 --> 00:55:46.040] Thanks, man.
[00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:00.240] Mm.