Introducing Rodrigo
Rodrigo Rocco is a dynamic micropreneur and indie hacker, known for founding JobBoardSearch.com, a curated list of the world's best job boards. His journey began when StackOverflow Jobs announced its closure, prompting Rocco to create stackoverflowjobsalternatives.com overnight. This quick response and subsequent Twitter activity led to significant interest and growth for his venture.
Rodrigo’s story is also one to learn from when it comes to combining developer skills, “small bets,” and strategic partnerships. He also demonstrates that you don’t need be earning millions in order to live a content life.
📊 Biz Breakdown
Here’s a list of all of Rodrigo’s ventures:
mres-Plugins
Job Board Search, Rocco's primary venture, has shown impressive growth, generating $3.4K+ in revenue within three months. This achievement was facilitated by the introduction of paid options like Sponsored Slots and Job Board Listing Upgrades, attracting 20 paid customers. VillasMediterranean made roughly $160K for him. Property Description AI is his latest venture, which is essentially a GPT-4 Vision wrapper, but for real estate.
Rocco's technical approach is minimalistic and efficient, utilizing simple technologies like a single PHP file, vanilla CSS, HTML, JavaScript (jQuery), and a bot for data management from Airtable to JSON for caching and performance.
It's been a year since the @jobboardsrch quoted tweet!
August 2022 -> 2023?
💵 $21,149.60 revenue
👁️ 751k views
📈 403k unique
↗ 247k referrals clicks
👩💻 75 paid job boards
📋 508 job boards
📝 5.4k newsletter subs
✈ 5.2k Telegram mem
® 4.2k subreddit mem#buildinpublic
— #Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗 from JobBoardSearch 🔎 (#@rrmdp)
11:02 AM • Sep 1, 2023
VillasMediterranean 🏡 is another of my small bets which had a slow start 😬
It just made the 5th booking of 2023 and crossed 20K Euros 💶in sales in 2 weeks 🥳
I kept:
• Adding content
• Adding properties
• Presence in SN
• Generating trustDO NOT QUIT 💪
#buildinpublic
— #Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗 from JobBoardSearch 🔎 (#@rrmdp)
6:04 PM • Feb 11, 2023
My boring directory of job boards passed $25k 💵 in revenue 🥳
After 2 months online @levelsio told me "Start charging" so I did!
I know is not a lot but it costs me less than $100/mo to run
This month passed $2k, you can make a living in a lot of countries.
#buildinpublic
— #Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗 from JobBoardSearch 🔎 (#@rrmdp)
4:11 PM • Nov 24, 2023
🫂 Team Secrets
Details about Rodrigo Rocco's supporting team are not extensively documented. However, if you dig into his tweets, you’ll find a few gems:
I do it with a partner, he does the PM too, I'm only in the digital side of the biz. My wife also helps a lot 😃
— #Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗 from JobBoardSearch 🔎 (#@rrmdp)
9:52 AM • Feb 12, 2023
My partner has been a property manager for more than a decade, I joined to build the tech side of the short term rentals biz and he had around 10 villas.
Also, we partnered with an agency in the UK
— #Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗 from JobBoardSearch 🔎 (#@rrmdp)
9:33 AM • Aug 11, 2023
Given the lean and efficient nature of his operations, it seems like he operates with a small team (micropreneur style), leveraging technology and automation to manage his business effectively. Rodrigo often mentions the SmallBets community — highly recommended!
📈 Rising Trend
A rising trend relevant to Rodrigo Rocco's business is the increasing reliance on niche job boards (e.g. remote jobs) and platforms for specialized job markets. These platforms offer tailored opportunities for specific industries, making them more effective for both job seekers and employers. This trend is reflected in the success of platforms like Job Board Search, which curate specialized job boards. You can see below what Rodrigo was documenting in 2022:
Google Trends search term "remote jobs" 🔥
I'm not an expert but I think people out there really want to work remotely!!!
Thoughts?
— #Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗 from JobBoardSearch 🔎 (#@rrmdp)
8:53 AM • Aug 29, 2022
🔑 3 Key Lessons
"To build in public, to ship as soon as possible instead to wait until is 'perfect'!"
Rapid Response to Market Needs: Rocco's immediate action in creating a platform in response to StackOverflow Jobs' closure shows the value of quickly addressing market gaps.
Lean Operation and Technology Use: His use of minimalistic technology solutions exemplifies how micropreneurs can efficiently manage resources while delivering value.
Building in Public: Rocco's philosophy of shipping products quickly and improving them in the public domain is a valuable lesson in adaptability and customer feedback utilization. Mentioning people who inspires him is also a great tactic. See below:
Well I never expected this tweet blowing up like this
More than 1K likes and 300k impressions
Looks like mentioning great people that you got inspired from and explaining why is helpful
Thanks and hope it inspire others too 🙏😀
— #Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗 from JobBoardSearch 🔎 (#@rrmdp)
3:43 PM • Nov 25, 2023
🇦🇷 History
Rodrigo Rocco's Argentinian heritage can be linked to a significant aspect of Argentina's history: the spirit of independence and innovation seen during the country's struggle for independence in the early 19th century. This period was marked by a strong desire for self-governance and the development of unique Argentinian identities and cultures, separate from colonial influences.
Relating this to Rodrigo's story, his decision to quit Computer Science to travel and the subsequent 17 years of running his own businesses reflect a similar spirit of independence and forging one's path. Just as Argentina navigated through challenges to establish itself as an independent nation, Rodrigo has navigated the entrepreneurial landscape, moving away from traditional career paths to establish his unique ventures. His journey mirrors the essence of independence, innovation, and the pursuit of a self-determined life, which are key aspects of Argentina's historical struggle for independence.
Moreover, Argentina's history of resilience and adaptability in the face of economic and political challenges can also parallel Rodrigo's entrepreneurial journey. His ability to respond quickly to market needs (like with JobBoardSearch.com), and his learning from various entrepreneurs, signifies a similar resilience and adaptability in the business world.
When I was 12 y/o I stumbled upon a computer with dBase code, I fall in love right away and told my father about it, next week I joined a Clipper programming course, the rest is history 😀
— #Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗 from JobBoardSearch 🔎 (#@rrmdp)
9:36 PM • May 31, 2023
🧰 Tools
Rodrigo Rocco utilizes programming languages such as PHP, vanilla CSS, HTML, JavaScript (jQuery). analytics tools like PostHog and Google Analytics to manage his business efficiently.
Other tools include:
Trello — for project management
TweetHunter — social media management
Airtable — relational databases
PostHog — tool for developers who need to deploy code fast
Bing Web Master — SEO for Bing
Telegram — for his community
I agree with Levelsio, @telegram 's statistics are next level 🤩
JobBoardSeach 🔎 group went viral again over the weekend getting 400 new users🔥
Passed 7⃣0⃣0⃣0⃣ members!!!
Crazy as it was stuck to 23 members for 6 months until I improved the job posts layout👌🏻
#buildinpublic
— #Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗 from JobBoardSearch 🔎 (#@rrmdp)
1:52 PM • Nov 27, 2023
🫵 What This Means For You
For aspiring micropreneurs, Rocco's journey highlights the importance of agility, lean operations, and responsiveness to market needs. Embracing these principles can significantly impact the success of a micro-business.