Intern for a SV-style Startup in Austin, TX | Hacker News Reader

Intern for a SV-style Startup in Austin, TX

onedayoneinternship.com

This was a fun company to profile. I really enjoy learning about companies that help publishers monetize their content—maybe because it took me a long time to figure out how to monetize mine.

Thanks for the profile BTW! How did you find out about us? My RSS scanner picked up the article and I e-mailed all of our top guys at the company asking who made this article happen--we still don't know, but it's one of the best write-ups we've had.

I run through so many companies, I usually forget where I found them within a few minutes of finding them. My guess is that I actually heard about you guys through HN or something that I found on HN. I really should get better about tracking where I find stuff!

If you guys put a press page together, be sure to add a link back to our article. (To other HN readers, this can be a really great way to build links for SEO.) Also, feel free to comment on the original post. We encourage employers to join and add to the conversation.

WillyF, how do you monetize OneDayOneJob?

We (and by we, I mean I) have contextual job advertisements across a lot of the site. If you don't look closely you'll miss it, but it's really effective—and users actually seem to find it useful. (~50% of 2010 revenue)

We also do direct ad sales/sponsorships. This was the main idea from the start, but it's taken a lot longer to grow than I would have liked it to. It's also extremely inconsistent. Selling media to HR is a huge challenge. (~30% of 2010 revenue)

I tried developing a product/course for job seekers, but it was a pretty big flop. Unemployed college kids don't like paying for stuff. Even if it's really good. (~10% of 2010 revenue).

The other ~10% of revenue came from miscellaneous sources.

Affiliate marketing has been an interesting play. I've done really well at getting free clothes through the Bonobos and Gilt Groupe referral programs, but I didn't generate much actual revenue through affiliate programs.

We're about to start participating in a new affiliate program in the online education space. I've known for a long time that there's a ton of money there, but I've finally found a partner that meets my standards. It hasn't launched yet, but I think that there's the potential for it to drive a lot of revenue—maybe even more than the contextual job ads.

The business was profitable in 2009, but just in name. Now I'm covering all of my living and business expenses plus a little bit. The trend is looking really strong, though January so far hasn't quite lived up to expectations (it's a huge month for job search traffic).

BTW, you can apply here: http://seeinginteractive.com/company/jobs/hacker-interns/

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