How I bootstrapped Remoteur with €53 and no existing audience . This is the story of how I built and launched it. Remoteur is a bi-weekly newsletter of remote jobs for pros based in Europe Tuesday, 27 June Idea Remote job boards are mostly US-centric, how about Europe? My research on , (specifically in “Searches related to remote jobs”), , and convinced me to build an MVP. At first I thought at another job board, then I decided for . Google Trends Google Search Twitter Quora Hacker News something quicker and easier to launch: a newsletter Name First things first: I needed a short, meaningful and memorable name. The experiment (some kind of “Quora meets Kickstarter” short-lived platform I launched with and two years ago) made me extra cautious with cheeky names, so after combining “remote” with “Europe” I came up with an innocent and french flavored “ ”. Big Tuts Massimiliano Adriano Remoteur Well, , you made your point. Lesson learned: U is next to I on a QWERTY keyboard :) Marc Domain, Twitter and Revue After I recovered from the surprise of finding that was available, I bought an hosting plan on for just €29 and opened an account on and . remoteur.com Serverplan Twitter Revue I chose over Mailchimp & Co for its simplicity and focus on community: I was pretty sure they would help me to increase my newsletter visibility. And last but not least, I found a to get three months of the Pro plan for free (normally it’s $5 a month). Revue coupon code Logo Next step: the logo. I’m not a graphic designer, so I downloaded a free ready-to-go logo from , courtesy of (thanks to and his for the tip). logodust.com Fairpixels Justin Jackson Tiny Marketing Wins Downloaded from logodust.com — Free & open sourced logos Friday, 30 June Value proposition After setting up my custom domain and having made sure the DNS records were updated, I wrote this value proposition: Remote jobs in Europe delivered to your inbox bi-weekly. First issue goes out July 4 I chose and announced a close date for two reasons: to make a public commitment and launch without second thoughts (“ ” as would say); Just Fucking Ship Amy Hoy to instill a bit of fear of missing out (FOMO) something “real”. First issue would be sent at the latest within four days. 1 subscriber (me) and 0 issues, not exactly social proof numbers: I would have hidden those if only Revue would allow it Designer News and Reddit Time to spread the word: first step, . My post got 6 upvotes, no comments and a tweet to their 14K followers: Designer News But here’s the best thing: the lack of competition - I chose to post on , the - allowed me to stay on the Designer News front page for the entire weekend. Friday least competitive workday The lack of competition allowed me to stay on the Designer News front page for the entire weekend Good thing, because my post on was basically ignored by the 46K readers of the subreddit. Reddit Digital Nomad Quora Next platform, Quora. I found these related questions: What are the best ways to search for a remote job in engineering/development within Europe? What are the best places to find remote jobs in Europe? Can you suggest a remote or flexible jobs portal in Europe? What are the best free job posting sites in Europe? I answered with a quick post been viewed 1K+ times so far: Check out a free bi-weekly newsletter called : every other Tuesday I go on a treasure hunt and share some of the best jobs for Europe-based remote workers. Remoteur Twitter and Slack Remoteur’s first tweet to 1 follower ( ) me My RT to ~600 followers I posted the link to Remoteur’s tweet on , ’s Slack community of CRO and experts I joined in May, and wrote this message: Unicorn Think Tank Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré marketing Hey guys! I’m launching Remoteur, a free bi-weekly newsletter with remote jobs for pros based in Europe. First issue goes out July 4: it would be great if you could subscribe, share and/or show some love. Thanks! and kindly helped me gain some exposure on Twitter: Nichole Jes Monday, 3 July Hacker News I posted on , got 3 upvotes and no comments. As for Reddit, I’m not involved in that community, so I didn’t expect to get much traction. Hacker News Cold messages I sent a cold email to and a similar DM on Twitter to , two european pros I chatted with on Product Hunt: Jane Portman Heidi Pun Hi Jane/Heidi, I hope everything is fine! Maybe you remember me as the maker of Big Tuts on . By the way, I’m launching , a free bi-weekly newsletter with remote jobs for pros based in Europe. First issue goes out tomorrow, it would be great if you could show some love. Product Hunt Remoteur Here’s a handy pre-populated Tweet to help me spread the word: https://ctt.ec/K6GEo Thanks! :) Fun fact: they both tweeted! Tuesday, 4 July 5 days later at 11am CEST I sent the to , here are the (very good, according to and ) stats: first issue 224 subscribers Mailchimp Upstart.me 48,66% opened 66,97% clicked 0 unsubscribed Remoteur’s first issue Another cold message Less than two hours after sending the first issue I wrote a cold email to Revue, basically asking to be featured in their : gallery of hottest newsletters Hi guys,what a breeze! Just sent out to 224 subscribers the first issue of Remoteur (remote jobs in Europe): http://www.remoteur.com It would be an honor to be featured in your , any chance? gallery Thank you and big ups for Revue, really loving it!Best from the city of Romeo and Juliet, Silvio BompanFounder @remoteurdotcom Revue’s founder replied a week later: Martijn de Kuijper Hey Silvio, thanks for reaching out! I just added your newsletter to our ! Explore page I was so happy that when asked me to check Revue’s italian translations I couldn’t help but say yes :) Martijn Thursday, 6 July Facebook I opened a just to spend €20 for this ad: Facebook page “Next issue goes out July 18” on a July 6 post, not the best use of the . I mean, really, what was I thinking? urgency/scarcity principle My target audience was 18-45 aged people living in Europe and matching (at least) one of the following: InterestsDigital nomad, Smashing Magazine, Web developer, Web design, Marketing, Growth hacking or Copywriting BehaviorsSmall business owners EmployersWork from home Job titleSearch Engine Optimizer (SEO) Life EventAway from hometown The results? : I’m sure there is considerable room for improvement. 27.747 impressions, 521 clicks and less than 20 newsletter subscribers I’ll need: a more persuasive copy; an eye-catching image; a book/course on the subject (“ ” by seems to be a legitimate candidate). Facebook Ads Manual Mojca Marš Product Hunt Product Hunt is an integral part of launching a new product these days. Mindful of the unsuccessful launch of (a now-defunct Big Tuts pivot), I wanted to ask someone with a larger followership - and able to submit products directly, without having to go through the review process - to post Remoteur for me. Contento I came across this tweet from , dutch maker of the most upvoted product of all-time, : Bram Kanstein Startup Stash and replied with: Then I waited… and nothing happened. Monday, 10 July Established that Bram wasn’t kidding about being selective (or maybe he was just busy), I found out that , who is - among many other things - moderator at PH, has a “ ” form on her site. Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré Submit a product for review for Product Hunt Here’s what I wrote, asking to be posted the following Friday: Hi Nichole,as you surely know remote job boards are mostly US-centric. That’s why I decided to go on a treasure hunt every two weeks and share some of the best jobs specifically for Europe-based remote workers. Launched 10 days ago, first issue went out to 224 subscribers on July 4 ( ), next one is scheduled for July 18. http://www.remoteur.com/issues/remote-jobs-in-europe-issue-1-63661 Remoteur has already been on Designer News front page, being featured on PH would be a blessing :) Thanks for your time!Silvio She replied a few hours later: Hi, I’d be happy to post this product for you on Friday. That’s me after Nichole’s email Friday 14 and Saturday 15 July aka “OMG Product Hunt” Just before lunch I got an exciting mention on Twitter: A note about that 12:35pm CEST The Product Hunt leaderboard resets every day at 12:01am Pacific. So if you want to get the best initial traction you should submit you product early in the morning, and that’s exactly what did: Nichole (who’s from Tampa, Florida) posted at around 6am! I’ll never be able to thank her enough :) Nichole I tagged the with “Hiring and Recruiting”, “Nomad Lifestyle”, “Email Newsletters”, “Tech” and “Website” to get a chance to appear as an alternative of famous remote job boards like or , then I added a couple of screenshots and wrote a greeting comment. Product Hunt post We Work Remotely Remote | OK I asked to be included into the PH collection “ ”, but I was late to the party: of the PH community team told me, “ . Anyway, being included in ’s “ ” collection has at least cheered me up a bit. Find a Remote Job “ Collections are closed” Jake Crump but we do encourage you to make your own and promote it! Get creative, PH retweets cool collections” Raffaele Gaito Italian Products At 1pm CEST I reluctantly sent an email with no value for my to celebrate the Product Hunt launch, trying to be extra cautious not to directly ask for upvotes (it’s against ). 330 subscribers PH netiquette I reluctantly sent an email to my 330 subscribers just to celebrate the Product Hunt launch Here are the stats: 52,73% opened 18,97% clicked (29 clicks on the Product Hunt image link) 5 unsubscribed Remoteur’s second issue I published this post on Facebook and spent €4 to promote it: My target audience was 18–40 aged people living in Europe and interested in Product Hunt. The results? . 741 impressions and 12 clicks In the afternoon came out of the blue telling me I’ve been featured on : Adam Davies INBOXME You flatter me, ! Adam More good news came while I was sleeping, first with a tweet from Product Hunt to their 281K followers: 20 likes, not bad :) Then with this: Fun fact: PH upvotes doubled since launch day Unfortunately Remoteur has been “only” the , so I couldn’t get extra visibility with PH newsletters: a product has to be in the top 5 for the daily version, top 6 for the weekly one. 8th most upvoted product of the day By the way, ! Remoteur subscribers doubled thanks to Product Hunt Tuesday, 18 July Four days after the Product Hunt launch I sent the to . Here are the stats: issue No. 3 656 subscribers 42,6% opened 56,99% clicked 1 unsubscribed I didn’t mention the PH launch in the intro, I tried to promote the Facebook page with the P.S. trick instead Automated DM? No, thanks One week before I set up to automatically send a direct message to each new follower of on Twitter: Crowdfire my personal profile Hi there, thanks for the follow! Interested in getting a bi-weekly digest of remote jobs in Europe? Subscribe for free: http://www.remoteur.com I’m an introvert and I easily (and erroneously) feel guilty for being too pushy, but this time I knew I wasn’t wrong. In fact replied with this DM: Darius Groza Already did that organically, stop automating everything man Not the best way to start a conversation, but after I apologized we ended up chatting about vacations in Italy, free drinks and british humour: as I should have imagined, people discover my profile from Remoteur, not viceversa. People discover my Twitter profile from Remoteur, not viceversa No more annoying and useless automated DMs from me, I promise! August August is the busiest holiday month of the year, but I decided to stick to the original plan, sending every other Tuesday three regular issues with 20 jobs each. Issue No. 4 Sent on 1 August to : 737 subscribers 38,32% opened 54,61% clicked 1 unsubscribed 4th issue’s long intro: probably too many CTAs, in hindsight Remoteur subscribers and I are in the same niche, so I thought it would be a good idea to share the books I’m reading. Best of all agreed to offer my readers a coupon code, and willingly spoke about Remoteur on her Facebook page dedicated to : Matt Isherwood Alessia Camera Startup Marketing Issue No. 5 Sent on 15 August to : 774 subscribers 34,88% opened 50,37% clicked 5 unsubscribed 5th issue’s short intro. Yes, this is the Medium post I was talking about :) Issue No. 6 Sent on 29 August to : 795 subscribers 34,34% opened 46,52% clicked 2 unsubscribed 6th issue’s intro I experimented a couple of things: I changed the mail subject from a generic to a more specific (and hopefully catchy) “Remote jobs in Europe — Issue #6” “#6: Remote positions at Github, Jungle Scout, Super Spicy Media and others”; I advanced the idea of a giveaway to get people to tweet about Remoteur. Along with this I edited the welcome message from Revue’s default: Thank you for subscribing to Remoteur! You will receive updates straight to your inbox, but you can also check out the for past and future issues. profile page Oh by the way, I wouldn’t mind if you gave my digest some love through or :-) Twitter Facebook To this one: Hooray, you’re subscribed to Remoteur! You’ll receive updates straight to your inbox, but you can also check out for past issues. remoteur.com Thanks again for subscribing, much appreciated. I send every other Tuesday, so look for the next issue very soon. Best from Italy! — Silvio P.S. to help you spread the word about Remoteur :) Here’s a handy pre-populated tweet Recently I’ve edited the P.S. part, mentioning the giveaway: P.S. I’m planning to do a little once we cross the 1000 subscribers line, feel free to Remoteur with anyone you think might find it useful :) giveaway share Finally, I changed the pre-populated tweet into “Join me in following this newsletter? Remoteur http://www.remoteur.com ” “Join me in following Remoteur, a newsletter of #remotejobs in Europe http://www.remoteur.com ”. What’s wrong and what’s next Slow growth With about 3 new emails per day, subscriber growth has been pretty slow but steady since the initial launch spike. Open and click rates are decreasing, but I guess it’s a normal physiological response in August: I’ll find out soon if I’m wrong. Subscriber growth has been pretty slow but steady since the initial launch spike 3 new subscribers per day since the Product Hunt spike Poor Google ranking Remoteur’s is only 54.7, so there’s considerable room for improvement. But I’ll have to replace Revue’s landing page with a custom one. WooRank score O Remoteur, where art thou? :( Few RTs Most of the companies I mention on Twitter ignore “their” tweet: honestly, I would have expected more retweets. Maybe I could make my posts more “visual” with tools like or , but I’m afraid it would take too long. Canva Pablo Relax Jungle Scout, I’m not talking about you :) What’s next Here’s what I’m going to do in the short term: a book giveaway to celebrate 1000 subscribers; a custom landing page to get 100% control and overcome Revue limitations in terms of SEO, analytics and unfurling (the way Remoteur previews look on social media and messaging platforms); I’ll consider advertising on Facebook (again) and/or sponsoring an email newsletter relevant to Remoteur’s niche; I’ll try to promote Remoteur participate regularly in 1-5 targeted Facebook groups I’ve joined recently. and Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, please share your comments below. And if you’re a remote worker based in Europe, . check out Remoteur
