#264 - 将2人业务发展到月入8万

嘿，兄弟，怎么了？发生什么事了？我好兴奋，刚收到手机短信。

Hey. What's up, dude? What's going on, man? I am excited. I just got a text on my phone.

短信说我的新Meta Quest Pro正在配送中，估计几小时后就能到。

It says my my new Meta Quest Pro is in delivery, so it should be here in a couple hours, I think.

我也想兴奋起来。我的Meta Quest Pro本该今天到货，但不知为何我的卡被拒付了。就在我飞抵亚利桑那参加朋友为期四天的单身派对时，购买被拒了。

I would love to also be excited. My Meta Quest Pro was supposed to show up today, but for whatever reason, my card got declined. Like, the purchase got declined, and it also got declined right when I was landing in Arizona for a four day bachelor party for my friend.

完美。

Perfect.

所以我不仅没拿到Quest Pro，还正好在集体旅行度假期间遇到这事。

So not only do I not get my Quest Pro, but I also was, like, on vacation on this group trip.

这是上周四的事吧？

This was, like, last Thursday. Right?

因为我

Because I

上周四我也遇到了同样的事。不是单身派对那次，而是我收到银行发来的消息说：'嘿，我们发现一笔可疑交易，来自一家叫Meta的公司，金额1500美元。我们已帮你拒付了，如果是误操作请告知。'

had same Thursday. The same thing happened. Not the bachelor party, but I got a a message from my bank that was, like, hey. We got a sketchy charge from some company called Meta for $1,500. Like, we're we just went ahead and declined that for you, but, like, if it's a mistake, let us know.

我觉得问题在于信用卡公司不习惯看到有人在Facebook上消费几千美元。通常有人花大钱在Facebook上都是因为被骗了，而不是买VR头显。

And I think what's going on is like no one is like these credit card companies aren't used to people spending thousands of dollars on Facebook. Like the typical stories of someone spent thousands of dollars on Facebook, they got they got scammed. They didn't buy a VR headset.

那地方简直就是骗子聚集地。

That's like the place where people go to scam people.

没错。但我连这头显有什么功能都不知道。今天收到货的人都在发评测，而我压根不清楚它的特色，也不知道比我现有的旧款强在哪里。

Exactly. But I don't even know what's in this headset, man. Like, I was looking the reviews are out because everybody's getting theirs delivered today who ordered this thing. And like, I literally don't know what the features are. I don't know what makes it better than the previous headset that I already have.

我只知道这是个新玩意儿、新玩具。我喜欢VR，所以就买了。

I just know that it's like a new gadget, it's a new toy. I like VR, and so I just bought it.

其实我经常玩VR。我有Meta Quest 2，经常用来打乒乓球。后来买了Quest Pro——还是你推荐的，当时你说'嘿，这个出新款了'。

So I I do VR all the time. I do I have the Meta Quest two, and I play a lot of ping pong. And I bought the Quest Pro. I mean, you suggested it. You're like, oh, hey.

我就随便买了。完全没觉得兴奋，因为以为只能打乒乓球。后来才发现有个会议室应用还挺有意思。

This is out. And I was like, whatever. And I just bought it. And I had no excitement about it because I'm like, I was I thought it was only gonna be ping pong. But then I realized there's one of these meeting room apps.

这不是我们做的那种，而是那种可以让你拥有多个不同屏幕的功能。我用Quest 2试过，觉得真的很酷。但问题是如果你有两三个屏幕，Quest 2的运算能力就不够强了，画面会变得很粗糙，延迟也很严重。

It's not the one that we do, but it's one that, like, allows you to have multiple different screens. And I went into it with the Quest two, and I thought it was really cool. But the problem is if you have, like, two or three screens, it's like the like the computing power of the Quest two isn't that strong. So it's, like, really grainy. It's really, like, laggy.

你无法流畅地操作这些屏幕。所以我猜Quest Pro才能真正让你同时使用多个屏幕，实现更多功能。

You can't really navigate the screens very much. So I assume that the Quest Pro really lets you engage with a bunch of different screens, lets you do things

是啊。

Yeah.

它有

It's got a

分辨率确实更高了，但还不够理想。VR眼镜本身的分辨率决定了你在虚拟现实中看到的屏幕分辨率上限。如果你想在VR世界里查看电脑屏幕，那个分辨率不可能超过你VR头显的实际分辨率。所以要想真正模拟出多个电脑屏幕的效果，你需要一个分辨率极高的VR头显，这样即使虚拟屏幕分辨率稍低也能保持清晰。我觉得要达到这种效果可能还需要五到十年时间。

higher it's got a higher resolution, but it's still not quite there yet. So you got, like, the resolution on the goggles, which is like, okay, here's how high the resolution is when you're in VR. 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. And so it's like, ultimately, like, you really wanna, like, 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, like, slightly lower resolutions and VR on your screens there that actually looks good. Like that's, I think, probably five or ten years away before you have screens that are that good.

我觉得比这有趣得多的是你在VR里打乒乓球。每周我都在群里看到你的运动数据，你的运动强度总是最高的。基本上你每天消耗的卡路里最多，因为你在VR里打乒乓球。而我在VR里除了开会，主要就是锻炼。我用Supernatural应用，有点像节奏光剑或跳舞机，跟着流行歌曲的节奏运动。

I think way more interesting than that is your table tennis in VR. Because every single week, I look at you in our root group and you have, like, the highest strain. Basically, you burn the most calories every day because you're playing table tennis in VR. And the only thing I do in VR really, besides the meeting rooms, is also exercise. I do, like, the Supernatural app, which is kinda like Beat Saber or DDR to a beat to, like, popular songs.

但你的乒乓球太疯狂了。你每天要在VR里打多少小时乒乓球啊？

But, like, your table tennis is insane. Like, you play, like I don't know. How many hours of table tennis you play in VR every day?

平均大概一小时，就是有时候三十分钟。有时候我会玩上瘾，大概一个半小时到两小时。

Probably an hour on average, which is, like, some days it's thirty minutes. Some days it's, like, I just get addicted, and it's, like, hour and a half, two hours.

你能戴那么久头显真是疯狂。我觉得我

It's crazy that you can keep the headset on your head for that long. Like, I think I did

现在习惯了。就像其他事情一样，经常做的话大脑可能就会以某种方式适应。但我真正更感兴趣的是——这还是因为我前几天听了个关于新Quest Pro的播客——它居然有AR功能，还支持增强现实。

it out now. It's like anything else. Like, you just if you do it often, probably your brain, like, acclimates to it in some way. 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, is apparently it's got AR. It's got augmented reality as well.

这个播客甚至提出，Meta和扎克伯格的长期布局其实是增强现实。而VR更像是个暂时让人玩得开心的酷玩具，直到...你知道，理想情况下他们只想要眼镜那种设备对吧？但目前硬件还没跟上，所以我们暂时还得用这些笨重的VR头显。

And this podcast went so far as to suggest that, like, Meta and Mark Zuckerberg's long play is actually augmented reality. 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? But the hardware isn't there yet. So for the time being, we have to have these big clunky, you know, VR headsets.

但他们有

But they have

VR头显是

VR headsets are

一个功能。

a feature.

我觉得VR比AR酷多了，比如看看《黑客帝国》，整部电影的前提就是虚拟现实。对吧？就像在你眼前覆盖一层足够逼真的画面。虽然我们现在还没达到那种程度。

I think VR is way cooler than AR because I mean, like, look at The Matrix, for example. Like, The Matrix, the whole premise of that movie is it's virtual reality. Right? It's like if you put something over your vision and it's good enough. Like, we're not there yet.

也许还要等五十年或三十年。但如果能在你眼前覆盖一层足够逼真的画面，你就能创造出任何想象中的体验。它直接取代了现实世界，你根本不需要AR。AR只能在现实世界基础上稍作增强，而VR能实现所有这些。

Maybe we're fifty years away or thirty years away. But if put something over your vision and it's good enough, then you can create literally any experience imaginable. Like it it obviates the real world. Like you don't need AR. Like AR can only ever do what the real world does plus a little bit, but VR can do all of that.

你完全可以开发一个VR应用来模拟现实世界，就像戴着AR眼镜一样。VR真的无所不能。所以我无法想象长期来看还有什么能超越VR。我不知道扎克伯格怎么想的，但我觉得这就是他押注整个公司搞VR的原因。

Like you could literally create a VR app that demonstrates the real world and this like simulates you having an AR goggle. Like literally VR could do anything. And so I can't imagine like the super long term play being anything other than VR. And I don't know what like Mark Zuckerberg's like, I don't know what's going to Zeddy's head. But I would assume that that's like why he's betting the whole company on VR.

而AR更像是早期过渡产品。嘿，埃里克，最近怎么样？

And the AR is like a little bit earlier. Hey. What's up, Eric?

嘿，还好吗？没什么特别的。

Hey. What's up? Not much.

抱歉突然插话

Sorry. Jumped in

打断了我们关于VR和AR的辩论。嗯哼。

the middle of our VR versus AR debate. Uh-huh.

你有什么想法吗？你有VR头显吗？

Do you have any thoughts? Do you have a do you own a VR headset?

我一件都没有。你知道，我时不时会关注它们。总觉得它们还不够成熟，不过我同意你的观点。从长远来看，VR最终会走得更远，而AR更像是短期的过渡方案。

I don't own any of them. You know, I've checked them out at various times. I never quite felt like they were there yet, but I think that I agree with you though. Super long term, I feel like VR is gonna ultimately be the one that kinda goes the distance, and the AR is more of like a shorter term stop gap.

是啊。在实现疯狂VR之前，它只是个小补丁。但我不确定，我是个技术宅，我觉得大多数人不会这么想。

Yeah. It's a little it's a little plus, little plug in the hole until we get to to crazy VR. But I don't know. I'm a nerd. I think most people don't.

多数人觉得这些东西都令人不安且反乌托邦。我想这就是当技术宅的好处——我们不会这么想。我该介绍一下你，你是埃里克·特纳。

Most people think all of this stuff is extremely unnerving and dystopian. And I guess that's a benefit of being a nerd. We don't. I I should introduce you. You're Eric Turner.

你是来自美国的软件开发工程师，2013年起定居日本。你在七月（也就是四五个月前）发推提到，你的初创公司Japandev是个超级小众的自举企业，没有雇员，只有我和妻子两人运作，当月收入已达60,590美元。

You're a software dev from The US. You've lived in Japan since 2013. And you tweeted in July, so just four or five months ago, that Japandev, your startup, is a hyper niche bootstrap business. It has no employees, just my wife and me, and it's earned $60,590 so far this month.

是的，没错。

Yes. That's right.

这相当了不起。如果不介意的话，你会公开营收数据吗？比如七月份之后有变化吗？

That's pretty amazing. If you don't mind, like, do you share your revenue numbers? Like, is it has it changed since July?

好的，没问题。我们确实可以回顾一下并更新这个数据。我记得是在八月份发的推文，当时说的是七月份的数据，我们大约赚了62,000美元，这应该是我们最终确认的数字。

Yeah. Sure. We can go through and give an update on that actually. So I tweeted that, I guess, back in August. 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.

然后下个月我们表现更好，达到了约83,000美元。哇，那应该是九月份。对，这就是那个神奇的数字。

And then the next month, we actually did even better. So we hit about 83,000 in Wow. That would be September. Yeah. So that was That's actually the magic number.

到目前为止。

So far.

每个Andy黑客都知道83这个数字。我懂，因为83,332美元乘以12就是一年一百万美元。

Every Andy hacker knows that the number 83. I know. Because $83,332 times 12 is a million dollars a year.

没错。但我们实际上也突破了那个数字。那显然是个重要时刻。不过我没在推特上讨论这个的原因是，我知道这个趋势不会持续，果然在接下来的九月份，我们只赚了大约40,000美元。

Exactly. But we actually did break that as well. So that was obviously a big moment. One reason that I didn't go on Twitter though and talk about that was that I knew that this trend was not actually gonna hold, and the next month in September, we actually hit, like, 40,000 only.

这正是我想问的。稳定性如何？

That's gonna be my question. How stable?

没错。这就是问题所在。

Exactly. So that's the thing.

是什么导致招聘平台的收入每月波动？

What is it that makes the revenue fluctuate month to month with a a job board?

嗯，因为我的收费方式和大多数独立招聘平台不太一样。通常它们采用按职位发布付费的模式，对吧？有个Stripe支付按钮，点击支付，每个职位300美元左右，非常简单直接。

Well, it's that I do billing a little bit differently than most indie job boards. So usually, they will be on, like, a pay per job post model. Right? You have a Stripe button, you click it, $300 or whatever per post. Very straightforward.

但我们的做法是，直到企业通过平台成功招聘到人才后才收费。所以加入是免费的，发布职位也是完全免费的。没有初始成本，但如果他们真的招到人，我们会收取一笔较大的费用。这就是为什么收入波动这么大。

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. So it's free to join, free to actually post jobs and everything. 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. So that is why the revenue is so spiky.

所以我应该详细说明下你们网站的运作模式。你现在就在做这件事。你运营着Japan-dev.com，正如我们讨论的，这本质上是个招聘平台，你将其描述为面向日本软件开发者和技术人才的精选科技职位网站。

So I should probably describe exactly how your site works. You're kinda doing it right now. So you you run Japan dev. Japan-dev.com. As we're talking about, it's basically a job board, and you describe it as a curated site for tech jobs in Japan for software developers and tech folks.

我认为它的聪明之处在于对英语用户友好。这就像是你们的细分市场——想在日本找工作的英语开发者。比如如果我住在美加等地，想着'我要搬去日本'，就会来看看。

And I think what's smart about it is that it's English friendly. So that's kind of like your niche, English speaking developers who want a job in Japan. So basically, if I'm living in The US or Canada or whatever, I'm thinking, you know what? I wanna move to Japan. Check it out.

但我不会说日语，也不了解当地文化。我该怎么在那里找工作？我可能会谷歌搜索，比如现在就搜'日本英语职位'。

But I don't speak the language. I don't know much about the culture. How am I even gonna find a job over there? I probably Google something like I'll Google it now. English speaking jobs in Japan.

没错，看吧。第六个结果就是japandev.com。很棒。

And yeah. There you go. Boom. Number six, japandev.com. Nice.

我点击那个，你就出现了。我浏览网站，申请了工作。在我搬去之前，就能在日本找到适合我的工作。这描述准确吗？能概括你们'日本开发'的主要业务吗？

I click that, and there you are. You know, I browse the site. I applied for a job. Before I even move there, I can find a job in my space in Japan. How does that describe does that, like, accurately describe, like, the the bulk of what you do at Japan, Dev?

是的，非常准确。我自己都解释不了这么好。我们确实服务日本国内外的用户。可能要补充一点的是，我们也帮助已经居住在日本想找更好工作的人。

Yes. That's perfect. You know, I couldn't have explained it better myself. I mean, we do cater, I guess, tour people both in Japan and overseas. So maybe that's the one thing I would add is that we do have some people already living here who wanna get a better job as well.

不过主要面向英语开发者/技术社区群体，大概就是这样。

But, yeah, I mean, it's mostly focused on the English speaking developer slash, like, kinda tech community. That's pretty much it, though.

你说'我们'的时候，不是指很多员工吧？不是指大团队对吧？是指你和你妻子？

When you say we, don't you mean, like, a bunch of employees. You don't mean, like, a gigantic team. You mean you and your wife. Right?

没错，这是个夫妻项目。我们一起创建的。现在我们俩都全职投入，辞掉了原来的工作。

Exactly. So it is a husband and wife project. We built it together. Now we are both, you know, working full time on it. We quit our jobs.

我之前是软件开发者，她原本是设计师，所以我们有互补的技能组合，这很棒。

I was working as a software developer. She is actually a designer originally, so we had these kind of complementary skill sets, which was really cool.

完美。

Perfect.

是啊，所以我负责写代码，她负责美化界面，这就是我们现在的工作状态。我们俩基本上都在全职做这个项目。

And yeah. So I write the code. She makes it look good, and that's what we're doing now. We're both kinda working full time on it.

日本这个国家真的非常有意思，我觉得。它民族构成非常单一，这其实挺有趣的。在美国，我们崇尚多元化。我刚看完《权力的游戏》前传《龙之家族》第一季，特别有意思的是虽然这是个奇幻世界，但角色阵容却极其多元。比如有个掌控舰队的家族，成员都是黑皮肤配金发。

Japan is, like, I I think, such a fascinating country. It's very ethnically homogenous, which is it's pretty funny. Like, in America, like, we're all about diversity. Like, I just watched this first season of the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, and it's funny because it's this fantasy world, but, like, you have, like, this extremely diverse cast of characters. Like, you know, there's this family that's, like, you know, owns the fleet, and they're, like, all black and blonde hair.

然后我还看了亚马逊的《指环王》前传剧《力量之戒》，情况也类似。里面有黑人精灵、亚裔精灵等等。在美国我们觉得这种多元化很正常，连科技行业都在倡导要超级多元化，尽量代表所有人。

And then I watched the Rings of Power, which is the Lord of the Rings prequel series on Amazon. It's, like, the same thing. You know, you got black elves and Asian elves and all this stuff. And we kinda think of that as like the norm in America. Like even the tech industry is like we should be super diverse and try to represent everybody.

但到了日本，你会发现98.5%都是日本人。这里几乎没有多样性，民族构成极其单一。你是个美国来的白人，我猜你是在哪里长大的？

But then you go to Japan and Japan is like 98.5% Japanese. Like there is no diversity in Japan. It's extremely homogenous. You're a white guy from America. Where did you grow up, I guess?

是什么经历让你决定要去一个你会如此显眼、如此不同、可能连语言都不通、如此独特的地方生活呢？

And what happened to you that made you decide you wanna go somewhere where you're gonna stand out that much and be so different and not speak the language presumably and be so unique?

哇，看来你做过些调查啊。说实话，最初决定搬来时我并不知道那个98.5%的数据。我是在美国长大的，但一直特别喜欢旅行。

Yeah. Wow. So you did some research, which sounds like. And, yeah, I'm not sure that I knew that 98.5 figure when I first decided to move here, to be honest. But, yeah, I mean, I grew up in The US, and I guess I just always loved, you know, to travel.

我父母从小就给我们灌输旅行的重要性，所以我们成长过程中经常全家出游。我一直有个想法，就是想要真正体验另一种文化，而不是生在美国某个地方就一辈子待在那里。毕业后我知道这就是实现想法的机会。

I, you know, I had parents that really kind of impressed that value of travel on us. And so we would, you know, go on family trips and stuff growing up. 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 US and living there my whole life. I just had that kind of idea in the back of my mind. So when I graduated from college, I knew that this was kind of my chance, you know?

我曾考虑过移居国外，说来也巧，我当时正好在学一点日语，纯粹是出于兴趣。高中时我其实选过西班牙语课，但大一那年我特别讨厌它，第二年就发誓再也不学语言了。对，高二那年我根本没选任何语言课。后来我们高中第一次开设了日语课程，我就想，好吧。

And I looked into moving abroad 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. And in high school, actually, I took Spanish my freshman year, absolutely hated it, and I kinda swore off languages the next year. Yeah. Like, I didn't take a language at all, you know, as a sophomore. Then my high school just added this Japanese program for the first time, and I was like, alright.

去试试看吧。日语看起来如此独特，和英语以及我熟悉的语言完全不同。所以我决定选这门课，并且从高中一直上到大学都没间断。

Check check it out. See, it just seemed like so unique and so different from, you know, English and what I was used to. So I was yeah. I'll it. And I kept taking the classes from high school then up through college.

那时候我觉得，如果要选择一个地方重新开始生活，日本其实是个不错的选择。那里很安全，是个发达国家，没什么可担心的。而且它有着独特的文化，作为一个在美国长大的人，我对这点特别感兴趣——毕竟美国是个相对年轻的国家，对吧？

And at that time, was like, you know, Japan, if you're gonna go just pick up your life and go live somewhere, it's actually a pretty good candidate. You know, it's safe. It's a, you know, developed country, so no real concerns there. 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?

我们没有那么悠久的历史。所以我真的很想去至少待上一年，学门新语言，体验不同文化，最终选择了日本。实际上我过去的方式不是以工程师身份——虽然我在学校学的是计算机工程，但还没有实际工作经验。所以我决定先休整一下，做一年英语教师，这是最初的计划。

We don't have that, like, super long history. So I just really wanted to do it for at least, a year or so, learn another language, experience a culture, and I just kinda ended up choosing Japan. 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. So I was like, you know, I'm actually just gonna take a break, I guess, and do, English teaching for a year. So that was the original plan.

没错。我原计划是搬到日本当一年英语老师，然后就回美国。

Yep. So I moved to Japan, be an English teacher, just do a one one year stint, basically, and then go back to The US was the original plan.

你是先去旅游过，还是直接就搬过去了？

Did you visit first, or did you just, like, bounce over there?

其实我去过。高中时通过学校课程项目做过一个月的寄宿家庭体验。那次经历让我非常享受，萌生了真正在那里生活的想法。所以大学一毕业我就坐上了飞机，原本只打算待一年，结果现在已经快十年了。

I did, actually. I had a homestay for a month during high school just as this you know, there's this program with those, like, classes that I was taking. So I had been there for a month and really enjoyed that, and I felt like I wanted to do it for real and actually lived there kind of as an So, yeah, got on a plane, right after I graduated from school and what for what was supposed to be a one year thing, and now it's been almost ten years, since then.

日本真是个超棒的旅游国家。我总说日本是我最喜欢的、却从未去过的国家。我甚至没有去日本的计划，日程表上都没有。但我知道总有一天我会去，而且我知道我会爱上它，因为它就像一个超酷的外星国度，文化如此独特不同，还有那么多酷炫的东西都来自日本。

It is such a cool country to visit. I always say that Japan is, like, it's my favorite country that I've never been to. Don't I even have plans to go to Japan. 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.

你住在那里。作为长期居住的当地人，你知道哪些是像我这样的初次游客不会了解的事情？或者你觉得游客知道后会受益的、关于日本的哪些方面？

You live there. What's something that you know as somebody who lives there and has lived there for quite some time that I wouldn't know as, like, a first time tourist? Or what's something that, like, you know, any tourist might benefit from knowing that you appreciate about Japan?

嗯，现在边境终于开放了，确实来了很多游客。边境关闭了将近三年，而日元现在正处于历史低点，这对赚日元的我来说很糟糕。但如果你赚的是美元，现在来日本就太划算了。所以如果你真的想来日本旅游，现在正是绝佳时机。是的，我有些标准建议会给那些打算来的人。

Well, right now, there are actually, a lot of tourists coming since the borders finally opened up. They were closed for, like, almost three years, and the Japanese yen right now is actually at a historic low, which is terrible for me since I earned yen. But if you're earning dollars right now, it's amazing. So it's kind of a perfect storm right now if you do actually wanna come visit Japan. And, yeah, I mean, I have some kind of standard advice that I give people who are looking to come.

一个是确保你办张交通卡，比如Suica或Passmo。别折腾单程票。还有不要给小费，这点美国人有时会搞错。在日本没有这个习惯。

One would be make sure you get a train card like a Suica or a Passmo. Don't mess around with tickets. You know, don't tip. That is one that Americans sometimes have trouble with. Like, it's not a thing here.

就是别这么做。在电车上要保持安静。这里有这种奇怪的文化，人们不太在电车上说话。每次我带外国朋友坐电车，他们总是那个在车上大声说话的外国人。所以我都会提醒他们别这样。

Just don't do it. You know, be quiet when you're on the trains. You know, there's like this weird culture where like people don't really talk on trains and there's always, you know, whenever I come in with like a foreign friend or whatever, they will be like that foreigner kind of on the train talking super loud. So I try to tell them not to do that. Yeah.

还有很多类似的零碎建议。比如如果要长途旅行，通常坐火车更好。我不太推荐租车环游全国，那样反而更慢，而且也省不了多少钱。停车也很麻烦。

There's a lot of just random stuff like that, just like tips that I have. Like, if you're going a long distance, it's usually better to take the train. Like, I don't really recommend, getting a car and trying to drive around the whole country. It tends to be a bit slower, and you don't really save much money anyway. Parking is a big pain.

讽刺的是，我觉得这些建议对我真的有用，因为我很想去日本。而让我震惊的是Cortland居然不去，毕竟Cortland对我很着迷。Cortland我会去的。来聊聊他是怎么想的

The irony here is I think I actually will make use of those tips because I would like to visit Japan. And I'm shocked shocked that Cortland won't because Cortland's obsessed with me. Cortland I will. Talk about how he thinks

只是我还没有计划。

that I just don't have a plan yet.

最美的语言。日语是

The most beautiful language. Japanese is

最美的语言。它就像

the most beautiful language. It's like

你有没有听过有人看动漫时关掉字幕，只听声音

Have you ever heard someone's like, watch an anime and then turn off the subtitles and just listen

这就像ASMR一样，我太喜欢了。

It's like ASMR. I love it.

太棒了。

It's so good.

哇。对了，我正想说，因为我知道你喜欢动漫之类的。所以我希望我会爱上它。

Wow. And, yeah, I was gonna say, because I know you're into anime and everything. So I was hoping I love it.

你可能已经看过上百部动漫了。关键在于我不用去日本也能看动漫，所以根本没必要去。

You've probably watched a 100 animes. The thing is I can watch animes without going to Japan. So it's very easy to just not go.

科林打算用VR游览，然后跟我说他的虚拟体验比我的真实体验更好。不过话说回来，埃里克，我很好奇，你去那边教过英语，但我查了下发现你后来开始找软件工程师的工作？那段经历是怎样的？

Corlyn's gonna visit in VR, and and tell me that his VR experience is better than my my real experience. But 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. What was your experience with that?

对，我只教了一年英语。当时给自己严格限定了时间，想着就干一年。到期后要么回国，要么去东京找软件开发的工作——因为我那个拼死拼活拿到的工程学位眼看就要荒废了，而我还没积累任何工作经验。

Yeah. So I just did the English teaching for one year. I pretty much time boxed myself on that, said, I'm gonna do it. But then at the end of that, I'm either gonna have to go home or maybe move to Tokyo and find a software development job because I just you know, my engineering degree that I had kinda killed myself to get was getting stale. I had not gotten any experience yet.

于是我想，干脆试试看吧。跑去东京碰运气，当时银行账户里大概就2000美元，直接坐电车就去了。之前住在富山县的小镇，到东京后租了间能找到的最便宜公寓。

So I was like, you know, I'll give it a shot. I'll go to Tokyo, see if I can find something. And, so, yeah, I just had, I think, like, $2,000 in my bank account, something like that. And I got on a train, basically. I was in this small town before in Toyama Prefecture, I just moved to Tokyo and got this, like, the cheapest possible apartment I could find.

那间房挤了我和另外两个人，月租500美元。我想着至少还能撑几个月，就全力投入找工作。那时候真的特别艰难。

It was, me and two other guys in this room. And, that like, $500 a month. So I like, alright. I have at least a couple months before I literally run out of money, and I just went all in on literally searching for jobs. And, it was a struggle, especially back then.

现在行业环境改善很多，会容易些。但当时我既没经验又没签证，需要企业担保。正如我说的穷得叮当响，只有几个月时间破局。申请的公司99%都拒绝了我，那段抑郁的挣扎期。不过最终被一家40人左右的日本初创公司录用了。

I think the industry's improved a lot now, it's a little bit easier, But I had no experience, no visa, so a company was gonna have to sponsor me. No money, like I said. So I had kind of a basically, a couple months to make this happen, and, I got rejected probably by, like, 99% of the places that I applied. So that was a struggle that was kind of depressing. But, eventually, I, you know, I finally found this small Japanese startup.

他们愿意雇我当Ruby开发工程师——这甚至不在我计划内。我原本想做移动开发，虽然做过些安卓应用之类的。但应聘时他们说'嘿'就录用了我。

It was about 40 people, and they, you know, were willing to basically hire me as a Ruby developer. So that wasn't even my plan. I was trying to be like a mobile dev at that time. I had built some, like, random Android apps and stuff, but I applied. They're like, hey.

我们需要一个后端开发人员。我当时就说，好的，没问题，我可以写些Ruby代码。

We we need a back end person. I was like, yeah. Alright. Sure. I'll write some Ruby code.

就这样我得到了第一份编程工作。但说实话那段时间真的很艰难，可能是我压力最大的时期之一。

And so I got my first programming job that way. But, yeah, it was a struggle. Honestly, probably one of the most stressful periods Yeah.

我能想象。那你当时日语已经流利了吗？现在呢？

Of my life. I can imagine. So were you fluent in Japanese by that by that point? And are you fluent now?

我现在日语绝对流利了。那时候我的日语已经足够好，可以用日语进行面试等。因为我更关注日本的小型初创公司，它们都用日语工作。就连我得到的第一份工作也是100%用日语进行的，这正是我当时想要的，因为我想多练习语言。我觉得如果能一边获得编程经验一边学习语言，就能一箭双雕。

I am definitely fluent now. At that point, I was already good enough to be doing interviews and stuff in Japanese. So since I was really focused more on, like, the Japanese, like, small startup companies, they were all in in Japanese. So even that that job first job that I got, I was working a 100% in Japanese, which is kinda what I wanted at that point because I really wanted to, you know, work on the language a bit more. I thought if I could get that programming experience while also learning the language, I would kinda be able to kill two birds with one stone.

你懂吧？

You know?

我能想象那种害怕的感觉，比如钱快用完了。因为我也有类似经历，大学毕业后就直接搬去了旧金山，

I can imagine, like, I think the experience of being scared, you know, like, I'm gonna run out of money. Because I did the same thing. I moved to San Francisco right out of college, and

我当时

I had

我当时几乎身无分文。但我天真地想，没关系，我才22岁，可以三个月内就创业成功——那时候真是年少无知。

I had, like, no money. And I was like, oh, that doesn't matter. I'll just build a successful startup because I was 22 and an idiot. I was like, I can do it in three months. It'll be fine.

但我无法想象在异国他乡经历这些：语言不通，当地外国人又很少，基本就是孤身一人。你当时有什么计划？如果99%的公司都拒绝你，创业公司也没录用你，你打算怎么办？

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, you know, foreigners in the country, so I'm, like, pretty much alone. Like, what was your plan? You know, if you didn't got rejected by 99% of companies, like, what was your plan if the startup didn't hire you?

计划就是希望能攒够回程机票钱，然后投奔父母。至少我知道自己不会真的饿死东京街头，最坏情况还能回家住一阵子。不过时间确实很紧迫，因为签证眼看就要到期了。

The plan was just to hopefully save enough for a return ticket home and then get back to my parents' And then yeah. So I knew I wouldn't literally die. I wouldn't, you know, on the streets of Tokyo because worst possible case, I guess, go back. And at least for, like, you know, some period of time, you know, live with my parents. But it was, like, coming down to the wire, though, because, like I said, I had this Visa that was about to run out.

必须靠新公司重新办签证。记得那时我熬夜做副业项目，经常在麦当劳点100日元（约1美元）的咖啡，一坐几小时捣鼓那些粗糙的Rails应用，就为了给公司展示GitHub上的代码作品。完全不知道能否成功，不过在东京确实结识了些朋友。

I had to get a new new visa from the new company and everything. 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. So I'd have something to show, like, some code to show the companies and try to have some code on my GitHub and everything. So I didn't know if it was gonna work or not. And, you know, I was getting to really like you I had met some people in Tokyo and everything.

我很想留在那里，但必须找到工作。就在几乎要放弃时——当时只剩两三个面试机会了——其中一个居然成了，真的全靠运气。

I wanted to stay there, but I knew had to find a job. So it really just came through at the last second, like, when I was honestly starting to think about giving up. I had this like, I had two or three interviews left, and one of them kinda panned out. So it was really just luck.

对了，日本科技行业是什么情况？我和Cortland二十多岁时在旧金山求职，那边有谷歌、脸书那些大厂...

Yeah. What is what is Japan's tech industry like? Right? So Cortland and I obviously were in San Francisco when we were looking for jobs in our in our mid twenties, and it's like, you know, there's the Googles and the Facebooks and and all those all those things. But Mhmm.

2013到2014年那会儿，你那边是什么光景？

In 2013, 2014, what was what was that like for you?

我觉得在美国，开发者非常受尊重。他们拥有很大话语权，就是因为需求高得离谱。而日本在软件方面相对落后，尤其是互联网技术这块，你随便选家公司当软件开发者的话，并不能保证工作环境有多好。实际上，平均情况可能并不理想。更多是那些传统日企，他们不太重视软件。

I feel like in The US, developers are super respected. They have a lot of power, right, just because the demand is so ridiculously high. 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 gonna be this guarantee really, where if you just choose a company and start working as like a, you know, software developer, that it's gonna be a particularly good work environment. In fact, the average case is actually probably not very good, I would say. It's more of, like, these older school Japanese companies that don't really respect software as much.

日本有外包的历史传统，更专注于硬件。在硬件和制造领域确实很强。但在软件方面远未达到同等重视程度。所以需要更谨慎地寻找那些特定类型的公司，因为市场上确实存在国际公司和现代日企初创公司这个板块。只要锁定这个方向，就能找到不错的工作环境。

They have this history of, like, kind of outsourcing and really being more focused on hardware. Japan's really strong when it comes to hardware and manufacturing Yeah. These things, but they haven't really embraced software nearly as much. 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. So if you just focus on that, you can actually have a pretty good, you know, situation here.

这就是我尝试做的。我一直在研究并为自己整理这份清单。我用Trello记录公司信息，当在 meetup 遇到其他外国人推荐某家公司时，我就会记下来作为求职参考。

So that's what I tried to do. And, you know, I was researching, kind of building out this list for myself. I had just this Trello list of companies, and when I found a good one or met someone at a meetup that, you know, was another foreigner and they said, this place is good to work at. I would kinda keep track of that for my own my own job search.

没错。你网站上提到创办Japan Dev的部分原因是想改善日本科技行业的国际形象。我也有同样印象——就像你说的，日本虽然是技术高度发达的社会，在电子、制造、娱乐动漫领域领先，但我甚至想不出任何一家日本科技初创公司。

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. And I think I have the same image that you're describing that it's like a very conservative place that, you know like you said, on one hand, like, Japan is highly technically advanced society. They're leaders in electronics and manufacturing, entertainment, anime, as we've said. I But can't even think of a single Japanese tech startup.

他们确实有软银投资其他科技初创公司。但除此之外，我根本不用任何日本初创公司的APP或网站。日本在这个领域完全不是领导者。你认为原因究竟是什么？

Like, guess they have SoftBank, which is invested in some other, like, tech startups. But besides that, there's like there are no Japanese startup mobile apps that I use or websites that I go to. It's just it's just not a leader in that space. Why do you think Exactly. That is?

你觉得是文化因素吗？为什么他们不重视软件？你打算如何改变这种现状？

Do you think it it is the culture? Like, why don't you think they respect software there? And how are you sort of, like, hoping to change that?

这是个很好的问题。我认为七八十年代日本经济奇迹般增长时，索尼丰田这些公司推动经济腾飞，使日本GDP跃居世界第二。这主要依靠制造业和电子硬件。所以我觉得是这种历史遗留问题——人们会说'看我们生产实体商品取得了多辉煌的成就'。

It's a really good question. I think that back in, the seventies and eighties, Japan had this period of, like, miraculous economic growth, right, where they had companies like Sony and, you know, 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. And that was thanks to a lot of this, like, manufacturing electronics, this hardware. So I kinda think that it is a remnant of that because, you know, you can quite point to that and say, wow. Like, look at this amazing result we had with these physical goods.

我们创建了所有这些流程和事物，旨在提高效率，比其他人更快更好地构建产品，这对我们来说非常了不起。人们至今仍对八九十年代那个泡沫时期记忆犹新。我感觉这种影响力依然强大，因为如今人们谈论的主要科技公司仍是索尼、东芝这类企业，市场焦点始终集中在这一领域，这多少有些遗憾。而过去十年左右，初创企业终于迎来了显著增长，你可能没听说过那些新兴初创公司，但它们正日益壮大，盈利能力也越来越强。比如有一家叫Mercari的公司。

We created all these processes and things to make them more efficient and, you know, build them faster and better than everyone else, and it was amazing for us. And people, think, still kinda remember that bubble era, of, like, the eighties and nineties. And I kinda feel like that has remained very strong because those are still kind of the same main tech companies that people talk about today, Sony and Toshiba and these types of companies, and there's just been a lot more focus on that side of the market, unfortunately. And then I would say really in the past decade or so, finally, there has been a lot of growth on the startup side, 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. Like there's a company called Mercari, for example.

它们在美国也相当知名。我曾在那里工作过几年，记得他们IPO时估值约七八十亿美元，是家独角兽企业。现在日本大概有10家左右独角兽公司，而六七年前几乎一家都没有。

They're actually reasonably well known in The US as well. I worked for them for a few years and, you know, they had like a 7 or $8,000,000,000, I think, like IPO. They were a unicorn. So I think there's like 10 or so unicorns now. Maybe even like six, seven years ago, there were literally none.

这个领域确实在成长。我期待未来能看到更多这样的公司发展壮大，或许会出现谷歌或脸书级别的企业，不过目前尚未实现。

So it is growing. 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.

所以你当时在Mercari工作？听起来像是背水一战的处境——你非常需要那份工作。得到职位固然很棒，但五年后的现在，你的新公司刚实现了月入8.3万美元的里程碑。这期间发生了什么转变？

So you were working at Mercari. It seemed like it was kind of a nail biter situation where, you know, you really, really needed to get that job. And I'm sure it was great to get the job, but then, what is it, five or so years later now, and, you know, you just posted an $83,000 a month milestone with your with your new company. What happened? Right?

你说当时通过开发副业项目来找工作，那时候就已经有将来自己创业的打算了吗？

Like, were you were you you said you were building some side projects to find that job. Did you know at that point in time that you wanted to eventually, like, try to build your own thing?

你妻子在这段经历中扮演什么角色？她是你在美国认识的吗？在科技产业极其保守的日本——要知道冒险精神在这里并不受推崇——你们是如何达成共识决定创办科技初创企业的？

How does your wife come into this too? Like, is this someone that you met in America? Is this someone that you met in The States? And, like, what was this conversation like where you're like, hey. We should start a tech a tech startup in this extremely conservative tech industry where, like, you know, risk taking isn't exactly rewarded in Japan or looked looked upon very favorably.

我对这部分故事也很感兴趣。

So I'm curious about that part of the story too.

首先，我确实在Mercari工作过。那是我辞职全职创业前的最后一家公司。不过在这期间我换过几次工作，包括我之前提到的那家小型日本初创公司。每次跳槽，我都会学到一些在日本找好工作的技巧，比如面试等等，而且每次都试图进入规模更大、更具全球视野的公司。就这样一步步直到加入Mercari，那是我最后任职的公司。

First of all, I did work at Mercari. That was the last company that I worked at before I quit my job to go full time, though. So there were a few job changes that happened between, the company that I mentioned, that kind of tiny Japanese startup. 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, and was trying to get bigger, kind of more globally minded companies each time. So I took, you know, a few of those kind of steps until I reached Mercari, which was, you know, the last time they worked out.

在这期间，我遇到了我妻子。其实我刚搬到东京找到第一份技术工作后不久就认识了她。嗯...她是我在东京最早的朋友之一。

And somewhere in there, I did meet my wife. Actually, we met pretty soon after I moved to Tokyo and got that first tech job. And Mhmm. Yeah. She was one of my kind of first friends here in Tokyo.

后来我们的关系逐渐发展，最终结婚了。我们并没有计划要一起创业什么的，更多是我对这方面越来越感兴趣。她主要是支持我的愿景——我想做一个求职平台，提供我希望存在的服务。就像我说的，当初找第一份技术工作时真的非常挣扎，后来跳槽也是。

I guess, grew into a little bit more than that and ultimately got married. It's it's not like we had this plan to start a a startup together or anything like that. It was more just I was getting more and more interested in that. And, you know, it was really more that she agreed to kinda support my vision that I had for basically a job board that was the the service that I wish had existed. You know, because I like like I said, I really struggled when when it came to finding that first tech job and even subsequently.

我当时就想，如果能有个专门服务像我这样人群的求职平台该多好——可以查哪些公司提供签证担保、是否有国际化环境之类的。我妻子非常认同这个想法，觉得是个很棒的商业点子，于是同意和我一起做。

And I was like, you know, it'd be really cool if we had a job where those folks are on the needs of people like me where you can go and see, does this company sponsor visas? Are they, you know, do they have a kind of international environment, things like that? And my wife kind of really shared my enthusiasm for that idea. She thought it was a great great business idea and basically agreed to help out with me.

我觉得很多职场人士都想转型成为独立开发者，但这条路很艰难。经济上怎么维持？社交层面也不见得能被广泛接受，风险很大。

There's a lot of people, I think, who are working jobs who wanna transition to become an indie hacker. I think it's like a tough path to follow. Like, financially, how do you support yourself? And socially, you know, it's like not necessarily the most acceptable thing. It's a big risk.

很多人是受到足够激励才决定这么做的。对你来说，这种激励来自哪里？是单纯想创业做自己的事，还是特别想解决帮助外国人在日本找工作这个问题？

And I think a lot of people just get inspired sufficiently that they wanna do it. For you, like, where where was that inspiration coming from? Was it, you know, you were just generally inspired to start a startup and do your own thing? Or was it specifically related to you just wanna solve this problem to help people find jobs in Japan?

更多是因为我一直都在做副业项目，虽然从没真正推广或盈利，但总有些编程项目在进行。潜意识里我知道总有一天会尝试创业。随着在日本职场经历——每隔几年换工作、对这个行业越来越了解——我逐渐聚焦到这个点子。在真正落实前有过几次失败尝试，最早一版网站大概是2017年搭建的。

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, but I always had some kind of like side coding project that I was building. And I guess just in the back of my mind, I knew that one day I would like to try being an entrepreneur. 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. And there were kind of a few false starts before I ended up actually building it for real. Like, I think the first version of the site that I ever actually built was back in, like, 2017 or so.

就像我说的，我当时其实维护着一个Trello看板，记录着我认为适合我这类人工作的好公司。后来我干脆把它做成了一个网站。最初版本甚至没有招聘信息，MVP就是个公司列表。典型的开发者作风，自己闷头做完就扔那儿了，没给别人看过。

And, you know, that was basically just like I said, I had this Trello board literally that I was maintaining of good companies that I thought, you know, were basically good places to work for people like me. And I essentially took that and turned it into a website. And there weren't even any jobs, actually. The MVP that I originally built was just a list of companies. So that, you know, that initial version, I did the typical developer thing, didn't show it to anyone, kinda just built it, wrote just wanted to write the code, whatever, you know, and then stopped, dropped it.

然后大概两年后我才重新捡起这个项目。当时我已经从开发者转成了工程经理，在思考职业发展时意识到自己还是想尝试别的方向。

And then, yeah, I actually didn't go back it until about two years later. I don't know why. I think I was just kind of looking at my life. At that point, I had actually switched from being a developer to a like, an engineering manager. And just thinking about my career and, like, whether I wanted to kinda continue on that path or try something else, I realized that, yeah, I kinda wanna do something else.

于是我重新拾起这个想法，认真重建了网站。不过一开始还是搞错了方向——做成了类似Glassdoor的点评网站。这是教训：我做了自以为别人会需要的东西，结果只有我自己用。

And I kinda came back to that idea and built it for real, rebuilt that site. And, again, it was still just like this job, not even a job where it was like this glass door kind of, like, review site at first, actually. So that was a mistake. I didn't I built what I thought other people would want, but, really, I was the only one who wanted it. So that is one thing that I would tell people who are interested in trying in trying to build a business.

没错，解决自己的痛点很好，但要确认别人也有同样需求。不知为何我对研究公司特别着迷，整理了50多家公司的详细资料。

Yes. Scratch your own itch. That's great. Do try to make sure that other people have that itch too because, I don't know, for whatever reason, I was really into, you know, companies and learning about them. I I had this, like, list of, like, 50 plus, like, companies and all this data about them and the stuff.

后来发现别人根本不会这么做。我把网站发到推特上引起些关注，但大家反馈都是'申请按钮在哪？我们需要实际岗位，不是公司资料库'。

And other people don't do that, I I realized. For whatever reason, I was kinda going a lot deeper than that, than a lot of people would. And built it, and I actually showed it to some people. I tweeted it out, and it got some initial buzz, originally. And some people were like, oh, that's really cool.

于是我就转型成了招聘网站。

But where's the apply button? Basically, was what it what it was. Like, I want actual jobs. Like, I don't wanna, like, go digging through all this information about these companies. And so I pivoted toward being a job board.

我很欣赏你选择人力资源招聘这个领域——这里资金流动大，决策影响深远。即使最初想法不成熟，也容易调整转型。我常告诉独立开发者：要切入用户重视且愿意付费的领域。每个人都希望做出让人自发传播、愿意买单的产品。

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, and it's a lot of there's lot of important decisions being made there that change people's lives, that change the nature of companies. And so, like, 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. 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. I think every indie hacker wants to build a product where people care so much that they're gonna use their product and they're gonna tell their friends about it. Every indie hacker wants to build a business that people care about so much they're gonna pay money for it.

我认为捷径就是看资金在哪里流动。职业招聘行业显然是资金大量流动的地方，因为公司雇佣员工并支付薪水。很难想象经济中还有哪个领域比这里花钱更多。另一方面，像你这样的人正在找工作，他们为此感到压力很大，这很情绪化。

I think the shortcut is just like, where is money changing hands? And the job sort of career industry is obviously where a lot of money changing hands because it's like companies are hiring people and paying their salaries. It's hard to even imagine an area of the economy where there's more money being spent. And on the flip side, you have people like you who are out there looking for jobs and they're stressed about it. It's emotional.

这很重要。它将改变他们的居住地和生活方式。所以他们非常关心这一点。因此我认为这是创业的绝佳领域，因为即使你搞砸了，你也知道自己离创造真正价值只有一两步之遥。

It's important. It's gonna change where they live and how they live. And so they care a ton about that. And so I think it's such a great place to build a business because even if you mess up, you know that you're only like one or two steps away from doing something that has real value to people.

这是我经常思考的一个问题，就是试图理解行业内的资金流向。实际上在日本有点独特，资金主要来自招聘公司而非招聘网站。这也是我决定采用独特的按雇佣收费模式的原因之一，就是为了更接近这种模式。但如果你只看公司，很多钱实际上都流向了这些招聘公司。当你看到他们的收费标准时，确实会让人大开眼界，因为这通常是员工起薪的百分比。而在日本，这个比例甚至比美国等地还要高。

And that was one thing I thought about a lot was 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 that it's mostly from recruiting firms more so than job boards. 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. But, you know, if you just look at the companies, and, you know, a lot of that money is flowing to these recruiting firms, essentially. 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. And in Japan, it's actually even higher than it would be in, like, The US, places like that.

大概是30%到35%。哇，这可不少。再加上我的想法是要做精品服务，专注于高端市场。把这两点结合起来，就意味着我只与那些支付高薪的优秀公司合作，他们本来就准备支付员工薪资的30%到35%。

It's, like, 30 to 35%. Woah. So that It's a lot. And that coupled with the fact that So my idea also was to be curated and focus on kind of the top of the market as well. When you kinda 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.

所以在我看来这是个巨大的机会。即使我的收费低于这个比例，我仍然可以通过每笔雇佣收取可观费用，从而建立良好的业务。

So to me that seemed like a huge opportunity. It's like even if I am, you know, less than that, I can still charge a lot per hire and build a good business that way.

就转型而言，这个案例很有趣，因为你从公司发现平台转向了这个招聘网站。实际上这意味着你转向了一个双边市场，众所周知这非常困难。你要面对冷启动问题，也就是先有鸡还是先有蛋的问题。所以即使你更好地满足了实际需求和机会，现在又面临这个冷启动难题。当时情况是怎样的？

So as far as pivots go, this is an interesting one, right, because you pivoted from basically a company discovery platform to this job board. And secretly, what that means is that you pivoted towards a two sided marketplace, right, which is, like, notoriously difficult. You have the, the cold start problem, right, this chicken and egg problem. So even if you were better addressing the actual demand and the opportunities here, now you've got this problem of, like, cold starting. So what was that like?

这个过程花了很长时间吗？还是你发现了什么诀窍？

You know, did did it take a long time, or did you figure out any secrets?

所以你总会遇到这种情况。我常告诉人们，如果想建招聘网站，就要有解决冷启动问题的方案。因为这是个鸡生蛋蛋生鸡的困境——要吸引求职者就需要企业发布职位，但要企业发布职位又需要求职者。正如我之前提到的，最初我做了个类似Glassdoor的网站原型，上面只列了约50家我筛选过的好公司。

So you're always gonna run into this. And one thing I tell people is if you do wanna build a job board, then have a plan for the cold start prong problem. Right? Because it's it's this catch 22 where to get applicants, you need companies posting jobs, but to get companies posting jobs, you need applicants. So as I mentioned earlier, I did have this initial version of the site where it was basically just this Glassdoor site where people go in and see, okay, here's 50 good companies or whatever, you know, vetted companies that I was kind of backing.

这个网站制造了足够热度，当我联系这些公司时，他们至少都曾浏览过网站。嗯。这确实很有利。但真正取巧的是我当时仍在职——我自己是软件开发者，于是先从就职的公司入手。

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. Mhmm. So that was actually really nice. But I do think actually the main hack that I used though was I was still working at the time. I was a software developer myself, and I went to my own company.

这招其实非常有效，因为那就是我的目标客户群，而且我已具备现成的人脉网络。所以能轻松联系到HR部门坦诚交流：'你们需要哪些功能？'当彼此认识时，销售过程自然更顺畅。我的第一个客户其实就是我当时供职的这家康复公司。但问题仍在：如何拓展第二、第三个客户？

And that is really powerful actually because it was my target customer, and I already obviously had the network of people there who I knew. So I was able to just break into HR very easily and have kind of a frank discussion with them, like, kind of features would you need? And, obviously, it's just a little bit easier of, a sales pitch and everything when you know the people. So that was my first customer, actually, was this company in recovery that I was working for. Then there's still the question of, what about company number two or number three?

我认为初期流量积累确实有帮助，尤其HR人员大多曾浏览过网站一两次，对品牌有印象。这样我发邮件联系时就不算完全陌生。第二个客户是我在Reddit发现的，对方自称是某公司HR——其实是日本知名招聘平台Indeed的员工。通过Reddit私信，我成功安排了与他们HR团队的会面。

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. They kinda knew the name, so it wasn't a completely kinda cold introduction to them when I was trying to email them or whatever. The second person I actually found on Reddit, they mentioned that they were like an HR person at one of these companies. It was actually Indeed, which is a big presence here in Japan. So I DM'd them on Reddit and was able to get an interview with, like, their HR people that way.

这种模式让我如鱼得水，因为作为开发者而非销售，我的提案极具说服力：'我会免费在网站发布你们的职位，带来大量流量，同时打造专业的英文公司主页——毕竟我在这些大公司工作过'。

And it was really nice to be doing the model that I am doing because I'm a developer, not a salesperson, 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 gonna post your jobs on the site. You're gonna get a bunch of traffic from me. I'm gonna build out a company profile page as well all in English, like native level. Like, I'm I've worked at these, you know, big companies here.

我清楚企业需求，自己就是目标用户代表。所以能承诺：'零预付成本，我来免费搭建，帮你们塑造专业形象'。

I know what we want. It's I'm literally, you know, the the target customer for it. So I'm gonna build this out for you for free. No upfront cost whatsoever. I'm gonna, like, make you look good.

你

You

知道吗？对。

know? Right.

而且除非真的有人入职，否则你不会付我钱。即使有人入职，费用也比你现在付给这些招聘人员的少。对吧？所以我唯一能让他们同意的方式，就是把方案设计得让他们无法拒绝，他们确实找不出拒绝的理由。这是关键所在。

And you're not gonna pay me unless someone actually joins. And even if that happens, it's still gonna be less than you're currently paying these recruiters. Right? 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, but they just couldn't really come up with reasons to say no. So that was a big part of it.

就这样我谈下了第二家公司，直接去找他们谈的。其实是通过Reddit上的一个人牵线搭桥。有了这两家公司后，第三家就容易多了。之后又陆续签了四五家知名企业，事情就变得简单多了。

And that's I got my second company is I just went and talked to them. And I had this kind of warm intro from someone literally on on Reddit. And once I had those two companies, I think the third one was a lot easier. And then from there, I've had, like, four or five, and they were pretty well known companies. Then it just got a lot easier.

最后我还拿到了一些客户推荐，这直接把业务推向了新高度——现在谈合作根本不费劲。现在大部分新客户都是主动找上门的，我基本不用主动开发了。偶尔听说某家新公司特别酷才会去联系。这部分已经完全不是问题了。

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. I get most of my new companies now from, like, inbound. I don't even really go out and, like, search out companies anymore. Maybe occasionally, if I if I hear about a new company, it's, like, really cool. But, now that that part that side is not a problem at all.

问题出在申请人那一端。

The other side of the applicants, yeah, that was the problem.

对。确实。

Right. Right.

所以这部分确实花了...现在平台上已经有了一些合作企业和职位。如果有人访问网站点击申请按钮，客户就能获得实际价值。但积累更多申请人的过程耗时远超预期，这简直是我们当时最大的难关。

So that took kind of yeah. So I had some companies now at this point and some jobs actually on the platform. So if someone were to go on the site, we had that apply button, you could actually get value as a customer. But that process of actually gathering more and more applicants took way longer. And that was an absolute like, a a real struggle for us.

实际上，从我们与公司签订第一份合同并发布第一个职位，到真正收到第一笔款项，大约花了十二个月。整整一年，十二个月。是的，没错。而拥有合同意味着我已经在经营一家企业，必须听取这些公司的要求。

And, actually, I think from the time when I got our first signed contract with the company and the first job posted to the time that we actually got the first payment was about twelve months. So basically a straight year twelve of months. Yes. Exactly. And the fact that I had contracts meant that I was already, you know, it was a business and I had to listen to the demands of these companies.

对吧？理论上，只要他们雇用了人，就有合同义务支付我费用。工作量不断增加，而我当时还在一家公司担任工程经理，管理团队。所以我基本上白天要全职工作。

Right? Because they're well, in theory, they had a contract to pay me as long as they hired someone. Right? And so the amount of work was increasing and I was still working as a, you know, an engineering manager, managing a team basically at one of these companies. So I would basically work a full day.

我早上醒来参加9点的会议，完成一整天经理的工作，然后下班。我妻子就会问：'准备好了吗？'

I'd wake up, have 9AM meetings, all that kind of stuff, do my full day as a manager, and then, like, I would, like, finish. Be like, oh, okay. It's over. And then my wife would be like, alright. Ready?

准备好开始在日本Dev的第二轮工作日了吗？我就会回答：'哦，好的。'

Like, ready to start, like, workday number two at Japan Dev? And I and was like, oh, yeah. Okay.

这太疯狂了。

That's insane.

是的，我们就这样坚持了整整十二个月。

And so, yeah, literally, we did that for twelve months.

我很欣赏你们能承受十二个月的延迟。这就是典型的市场冷启动问题，就像先有鸡还是先有蛋——如何同时解决两端需求？

I love that there there could be that twelve month lag. Right? Like, you have this marketplace. It's the cold start problem with the chicken and the egg. Like, how do you get both parts?

但是，如果你先从供应端入手，给他们一个他们无法拒绝的绝佳提案，他们根本不在乎你要花多长时间。某种程度上，你是在帮他们找客户，这样你就有时间先搞定一边，再转向另一边。

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. Like, at some point, you're finding them customers and that gives you the time to kinda do one side and then move to the other side.

至少他们没有流失。不过确实。

At least they didn't churn. But yeah.

是的。而且我很欣赏你从销售开始的做法。我觉得很多独立开发者有完全相反的思维方式和直觉。他们会想：'我是个软件工程师，我最不擅长的就是打电话、发消息做销售。'

Yeah. And then I also love that you started with, like, sales. I think a lot of indie hackers have the opposite sort of mindset and intuition. They think, oh, I'm a software engineer. The thing I'm the worst at in the world is calling anyone or messaging anyone and doing sales.

觉得这根本不可能。更别说向大公司销售了。他们会觉得应该找大量个人用户，做营销。但事实证明这才是最难的。让成千上万的人访问你的网站超级难，很多人要花好几年。

Like, that's impossible. And I certainly can't sell to, like, a really big company. Like, what I need to do is find lots of individuals to sell to you, and I'll do marketing. Like, it turns out, like, that is actually the hard part. Getting thousands of people to your website, super duper hard, takes years for a lot of people.

而私信几家公司，发些陌生邮件，打几个电话，几乎任何人都能做到，完全不需要经验。这其实挺惊人的。不是说它很容易，但我在为Indie Hackers卖广告时，毫无销售经验就打电话给公司，一小时后就能成交5000美元的单子，因为他们会说：'行啊，我们就在你播客上投广告吧。'

DMing a few companies, sending some cold emails, having a few phone calls, almost anyone can do with really no experience. And it's kind of shocking. Like, I don't wanna 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. And then, like, an hour later, I would have made $5,000 because I'm like, yeah. We'll buy an ad on your podcast.

我朋友Len创办Key Values时也是这样。和你最初的想法有点像，是个带有Glassdoor风格的招聘平台。她和你用了同样的方法——直接打电话联系一堆公司。

And I've had friends, my friend, Len, who started Key Values. It's kind of similar to your first idea where it's kind of a job board but based on, you know, more Glassdoor vibe. She did the same thing. Same process as you. Called up a bunch of companies.

最开始几家公司会说：'好吧，反正也没什么损失。'等她签下5到10家后，事情就变得超级简单，因为有了这些品牌背书，其他公司都会想：'竞争对手都在做，那我们也做吧。'

The first few were like, oh, okay. I guess we don't have anything to lose. And then after she had five or 10, it's super easy because she has all these brand names, and everyone's like, our competitors are doing it. Like, sure. We'll do it too.

因此我认为，对独立开发者来说，从销售策略入手远比一开始就寻找成千上万的用户要好得多。但最终我们不得不那么做。到了某个阶段，你必须寻找用户。没错。

And so I think starting with that sales approach is so much better for indie hackers than than starting with trying to find thousands of users. But eventually, we had to do that. At some point, you have to find Yep.

申请者们。那才是真正成为一门生意的时候。在此之前都不算。你懂我的意思吗？人们可能以为有了大量代码之类的就算，但其实不是。

The applicants. And that's when it actually becomes a business. Until then, it's not. You know what I mean? People you might think it is because you have so so much code written or whatever it is, but nope.

没有客户就不算真正的生意。首先我要说，我很喜欢和Key Values的Lynn那期节目。那确实是我们最初决定如何建站时重点参考的公司之一。我想我只是把错误犯得够多了——就像我提到的，我一直都在业余时间开发项目，却犯着开发者常见的错误：闭门造车，从不示人。

It's not a business until you have a customer. But first of all, love that episode with Lynn from, Key Values. 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. And I think I just done it wrong enough times. Like, I mentioned that I have always kind of been building stuff on the side and doing doing the usual mistake of the software developer where I am building it, showing it to no one.

项目最终消亡是必然的，因为我失去了动力。它赚不到钱，也没有人...

It just dies because I of course, I lose motivation. It's not earning any money. No one's

对。

Right.

给我反馈。这种情况我大概重复了五六七次。这次我终于开窍了——我听了Indie Hackers这类播客，终于意识到：要想真正做成，就必须走出去和人交流。

Giving me feedback on it. And then I did that probably five, six, seven times. And this time, I was like, alright. You know, I 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.

即便如此还是害怕得要命。起初我做得糟糕透顶——现在回头看那些LinkedIn上的冷冰冰的私信，尴尬得脚趾抠地：那些信息长得离谱，根本不可能有人会读完。

It was still incredibly scary. I still did a horrible job at first. Like, when I go back and look at the, like, cold LinkedIn, know, LinkedIn messages and stuff that I was sending, I cringe so hard because they're, like, absurdly long. There's no way anyone would ever actually read these. They're so long.

你知道，他们一直在谈论服务，完全不提客户。不是以利益为导向，就是单纯在说'我们正在打造这个超酷的东西，看它有多棒'，懂吗？

You know, talking all about, like, the service, not talking about the customer at all. They're not benefit driven. It's just like, we're building this really cool thing. Like, here's why it's, like, so awesome. Know?

而且，没有多个行动号召按钮。简直糟糕透顶。我违反了所有可能的销售规则，居然还有人回应，真是奇迹。

And, like, no, like, multiple CTAs. You know? It's just terrible. I broke every every possible sales rule, and it's amazing that anyone even responded.

不过我喜欢这点，因为你打破所有规则却成功了。你完全做错了却依然有效，这对刚起步的人来说太鼓舞人心了。我觉得你的业务和我最爱的创业策略高度契合，这个策略我提过几次——我用它创建了被Stripe收购的Indie Hackers，Peter Levels用它做了Nomad List。

I love that, though, because you could break all those rules and it works. 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. I feel like your business matches up really closely to one of my favorite strategies for starting a business, which I've talked about a couple times. It's a strategy that I use for Indie Hackers, which got acquired by Stripe. It's a strategy that Peter Levels used for Nomad List.

他靠这个年收入数百万美元，还有衍生产品。同样的策略Lin Tai用在key values上，我记得她年收入约40万美元，就她一个人，没有员工。如果你遵循这个过程，很有机会建立盈利业务。所以我想分享给你，听听你的看法是否适用。

He's making millions of dollars a year in revenue from that, and it's spin off products. Same strategy that Lin Tai used in in key values, which I think she makes, like, around $400 a year with key values, it's just her. No employees. And I think if you go through this process, you have a pretty good chance of building a profitable business. So I wanna, like, to share it with you, you tell me what you think and whether it applies to you.

这是个三步走的过程：首先，注意到生活中对你重要且你正在深入研究的事。比如我想创建自举公司，这对我很重要，就开始大量研究寻找前人经验来学习。

It's kind of a three step process. 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. So in my case, I want to start a bootstrap company. Was important to me. I started doing a ton of research to try to find other people who had done this so I can learn as much as I could.

你的情况是想在日本找工作，所以做了大量研究，查看各种公司，回复邮件，非常熟悉流程因为信息量太大。Peter Levels的情况是他是数字游民，研究各地居住条件，想知道安全性、生活成本和网速，这需要全网大量研究。这是第一步。

In your case, like, you wanted a job in Japan, so you're doing all this research, looking at all these different companies, replying, and getting really familiar because it's just a lot to take in. Or in Peter Levels' case, he was a digital nomad. He was doing a ton of research about places to go and live and be a nomad. And he wanted to know how safe it was and how the cost of living was and how fast the Internet was, and that just required, like, a ton of different research all over the web. So that's step one.

第二步是把所有研究整理成可呈现的形式。关键是要确保其他人也关心这些研究，不能只是你。然后需要把成果放到网站上，用列表或网格形式展示。

Step two is you gotta take all your research. You gotta make it presentable. And that means, like, number one, other people have to care about this research. It can't just be you. 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.

我认为这种网格布局相当流行。早期的Indie Hackers就是一个采访网格，Nomad List是城市网格，Japan dev则是一个工作机会网格。但真正重要的其实不是网格本身。

I think the grid's pretty for like, you know, pretty popular. Indie Hackers in its early days are just a grid of interviews. Nomad List is a grid of cities. Japan dev is sort of a grid of just jobs. And what's important really isn't the grid.

重要的是了解你的目标受众和他们想要什么，这样当你把研究成果放到网上时，就能以他们需要的形式呈现。然后是第三步——我认为也是最难的部分——我们要讨论的就是如何推广它，让它能被发现。仅仅把这些内容放在网上是不够的，你需要设法让那些正在做你曾经做过研究的人看到你的内容，希望他们在搜索时能偶然发现你的成果。

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. 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 gotta distribute it. It's gotta be discoverable. So it's not good enough for you just to, like, 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. But now when they're doing that research, they'll stumble across your thing, hopefully.

以Endy Hackers为例，他们知道想做这事的人都会看Hacker News，所以就在那里发布。而Nomad List的Peter Levels活跃在各种Twitter话题里，发布Nomad List内容和针对数字游民的文章，这样正在做研究的人就会找到他的网站。至于你提到的SEO...

And so with Endy Hackers, like, knew that, like, hey. Everyone who wants to do this is looking on hacker news, so I'll post it there. But Nomad List, I think Peter Levels is in all these different, like, basically, Twitter threads where he's posting Nomad List and, like, these different articles or targeted digital nomads. And so people who are doing research would find his website. And with you, like you mentioned, SEO.

对吧？如果我是个外国人想在日本找工作，我会怎么做？就像我刚才演示的那样，去谷歌搜索。这就是你需要出现的地方，好让人们找到你。所以我很想深入探讨这一点。

Right? If I'm trying to find a job in Japan and I'm, you know, a foreigner, what do I do? Like, do research by going to Google and searching for it just like I did earlier. And, like, that's where you need to be for people to find you. So, like, I do wanna dive into that.

具体要怎么执行这个第三步呢？你是怎么让谷歌收录你的内容的？

Like, how do you execute this third third step of the process? Like, how did you get yourself found by Google?

首先，我觉得这个框架完全正确——这正是我的做法。就像你说的，第三步对我来说确实最难，因为我从未真正做过营销。而且不幸的是，这步也是最慢的，因为我们主要依赖的推广渠道就是SEO，特别是谷歌。正如你所说，这基本是我这个细分领域流量的主要来源。

Well, first of all, I think that framework is totally on point. Like, that's exactly what I did. And like you said, the third step was definitely the hardest for me since I had never really done marketing. And, unfortunately, it was also the slowest because I was relying I I would say the main distribution channel that we ended up using was SEO, especially Google. Because, like you said, that is pretty much where the traffic comes from, for this kind of niche that I am, focused on.

其中很重要的一部分就是撰写博客内容，主要围绕求职相关主题。因为招聘版块本身会针对特定关键词创建独立页面，比如'日本Python工作'或'日本PHP工作'之类的。然后下一步就是为博客撰写内容，解答像我这样的人可能会有的问题。早期最受欢迎的内容之一就是我写的薪资指南，主要聚焦国际公司，介绍软件开发者实际能赚多少钱，根据资历等级等因素来分析。

So, you know, a big part of that was just writing blog content, basically related topics to getting jobs. I mean, because the job board itself, those pages will target keywords like, you know, if you search, like, Python jobs in Japan or PHP jobs in Japan, all those those kind of I created pages, separate pages basically to cover all of those for all of the different, you know, programming languages and that kind of thing. And then the next step was just basically writing content for our blog, which answered questions that people like me would have. So, you know, one of the most popular ones I had early on was, the salary guide that I wrote. It was, like, focused really on these, like, more international companies and, you know, here's what you can actually earn as a software developer, you know, based on, the level that, you know, your your seniority and all that kind of thing.

另一个是我作为软件开发者移居日本的整体指南。我写了很多博客文章，页面结构也非常重要，要确保有独立的页面，就像我说的，而不是只有一个大页面只针对一两个关键词。这是我学到的一点。你提到的Peter Leves，他的Nomad List就是个很好的例子，我确信他有成千上万个页面，因为每个筛选条件都是独立的页面。

And another one was just an overall guide that I had for, like, moving to Japan as a software developer. So I was writing, you know, 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, one big page that is gonna be only hiring you know, only really targeting one or two keywords. So that was something that I learned. Peter Leves, who you mentioned, is another good example of this with Nomad List. He has, like, tens of thousands of pages, I'm pretty sure, because, like, each filter is its own page.

我读过一篇关于这个的文章。哇，我明白了。所以你们把页面放上去。是的，我还做了很多其他事情，比如在Google Jobs上发帖。

And I read this article about that. Like, oh, wow. I see. So you guys put, you know, the pages up. And, yeah, mean, there's a lot of other stuff I did, like, posting on the Google jobs.

是的，就像Google Jobs网络已经有的功能，它会在搜索引擎结果中显示职位。添加标记启用这个功能实际上给我的流量带来了不错的提升。我想这些大概是最让我印象深刻的主要事情。

Yeah. Like, the Google jobs network already. There's this feature where it'll show the jobs in the search engine result. So adding the markup to enable that gave me a pretty good boost actually in traffic. I guess those are probably the main things that I was impressed.

是的，但问题是它很慢。效果是累积的。你做出改变后，要等三到六个月才能真正看到成果。这就是为什么我有这么长的滞后期。

Yeah. But the problem is that it is slow. It compounds. And you change something and it you see the fruits of that literally three to, like, six months later. So that is why I had this really long lag time.

在那段时间里，我肯定也在改进用户体验等方面，让找到申请按钮变得超级简单。另一件事是邮件列表，我一开始不知道，当我刚建站时，但对于招聘网站来说，现在这是个大事。你真的需要从一开始就收集邮件。我越来越擅长发送这些邮件，并学会如何写一封吸引人的邮件，当我发布新职位时发给那些人。

And during that time, I was definitely improving the, you know, the the UX and everything as well to just make it super easy to find the the apply button. And the other thing, I guess, was the email list. I didn't know this at first, you know, when I first put the site, but for job boards, I would say it's a big thing right now. You really need to be collecting emails from the start. And, you know, I got better and better kinda sending those emails and figure out how to write a compelling email to, you know, those people when I would post new jobs.

所以我自己在做这件事。也学会了文案写作。这些是我们拥有的两个最大的分发渠道。当然，还有在社交媒体上发帖，尤其是Twitter和LinkedIn。LinkedIn实际上效果很好。

So I was doing that myself. Kinda learned that copywriting as well. And those were kind of the two biggest kind of distribution channels that we had. Of course, posting on social media as well, especially Twitter and LinkedIn, I would say. LinkedIn actually worked quite well.

基本上一年后，它开始见效了。从那以后，事情变得容易多了。

That after, you know, a year, basically, it started to pay off. And then from there, things got a lot easier.

那段旅程在情感上是怎样的？因为我觉得很多独立开发者都处于这种状态：他们努力让自己的项目运转起来。他们建好了网站，开发了产品，正在努力获取客户。

What was that journey like emotionally? Because I think a lot of indie hackers are in this state where they're trying to make their thing work. They built the website. They built the product. They're trying to get customers.

但效果不佳，于是他们灰心丧气地放弃了。要知道，大多数人在写文章一两个月后，如果流量没有明显增长就会放弃。绝大多数人肯定会在四个月、六个月、八个月或十一个月后放弃。而你坚持了大约一年。是什么让你坚持下去？你如何在这种情况下保持动力？

It's not working, and they get discouraged and quit. Know, You most people will quit after a month or two of writing articles and it's not generating a lot of traffic. Most people definitely quit after like four months or six months or eight months or eleven months. So you made it like a year. Like what what kept you going and how do you keep going in that situation?

说实话，新冠疫情确实帮了我一把。因为我不再需要通勤上班了，而且说真的我当时需要找点事做。至少在日本这边，在我挣扎的那一年里，防疫措施相当严格。所以能有这个项目其实是件好事。但这并不意味着过程很轻松，因为看着申请人数不断增加，高质量职位越来越多，却依然没有实际收入，确实令人抓狂。

Yeah. One thing that actually helped was COVID because I didn't have to commute to the office anymore, and I kinda just needed something to do, to be honest, where I mean, at at least here in Japan, like, things were pretty locked down for, like, kind of that year that I was struggling. So it was kinda nice to have it. That doesn't mean it wasn't a struggle, because it it was definitely exasperating to see, like, the the numbers go up and more and more people apply. You know, I had more and more kind of high quality jobs, and yet we still just weren't earning any actual money.

如果不是因为居家隔离，哪儿也去不了，我可能早就放弃了。但还好我们坚持得足够久，终于收到了第一笔来自企业的实际付款。从那以后，这就成了额外的动力——我们心想：好，这个模式是可行的。

And if it weren't for, you know, being at home and not going out anyway, just kinda just being stuck there regardless, I probably would end up quitting. But, yeah, we were able to keep going just long enough to finally get our first first actual payment from a company. And then from there, we kinda have that as extra motivation. We're like, okay. It works.

我们需要扩大规模。显然要继续坚持现在的方向。虽然还有很多工作要做，但这证明这条路走得通。

We gotta scale it. Obviously, we gotta keep doing what we're doing. You know, we have work to do yet, but this is viable.

招聘平台行业有很多成功案例，但绝大多数初创平台都失败了。你觉得你掌握了哪些他们不知道的诀窍？那些初创招聘平台做错了什么？

There's these success stories to job boards where the vast majority of people that only started job boards have failed. So what do you think you know that they don't know? You know, what are what are people who's starting job boards doing doing wrong?

现在招聘平台太多了，我甚至听到有人说这个市场已经饱和，不建议再创建新的招聘平台。但我个人认为这个领域仍有很大潜力，不过必须找准细分市场。现阶段我不建议再创建另一个普通的远程工作招聘平台，这确实不是个好主意。

So there are so many job boards now, and I've actually heard people say that, like, they're kind played out at this point. They don't recommend creating job boards. And I actually think there's still a lot of potential, personally, but I do think you definitely need to niche down. I don't think you should create another, like, remote job board at this point. I wouldn't recommend doing that.

所以一定要选择一个细分领域。然后，我觉得还是有一套对我比较有效的方法论，确实会遇到你说的冷启动问题，所以需要找到突破方法。很多人会通过爬取职位来解决，先确保供给端充足，自然就能吸引用户。如果能做到精准聚焦和精心筛选，我认为在海量职位中做精选很有价值——比如我帮你完成调研筛选出符合特定标准的好职位，直接呈现给你。

So definitely choose a niche. And, you know, 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, so having a way to get past that. And, you know, a way that a lot of people do it is to just crawl jobs so that they already have the supply, and then that affects users. 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, you know, these good ones or these ones that fulfill this criteria so that you don't have to, basically, and here they are.

但如果你在爬取职位的同时（通常公司对此并不介意），他们那些带有API的招聘系统其实很容易爬取数据，现在大多数人都是这么做的。只要做好这点再重点攻克SEO优化，像我说的为不同关键词创建独立页面，发布到Google职位搜索等平台，基本上照搬我之前的做法，这套方法依然有效。

But 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 kinda just crawl that data from pretty easily. That's what most people are doing these days. 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, posted on Google jobs, all basically, all those things that I did. I think that that will still work.

接下来确实需要在营销端发力，确保多渠道推广。其实我对招聘板模式整体依然很看好，最近刚在日本启动了个新项目。因为之前专注日本市场产品有点孤单，想尝试面向国际市场的产品，目前正在自主开发这个叫rocketchips的招聘板（还在完善中）。

And then, yeah, you just really need to go hard on the marketing side of things. Make sure you're sharing it. So, yeah, I'm actually still very bullish on job boards in general. 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, and, I wanted to try building something more for the international market. So I actually am bootstrapping this new job board now, the work in progress, but it's called rocketchips.

简单说这是针对成长期中型公司的招聘板——介于初创企业和成熟大厂之间的发展阶段。这类公司往往增长最快，风险收益比最佳，兼具两者优势。类似Breakout List的概念。

So it's basically a job board for midstagecom companies in this kind of growth period between small startup and big established company. But the idea basically being that, these are the companies that are kinda growing the fastest. They have the best risk reward because they have kind of the best of both worlds. Yeah. Similar to Breakout List.

你看过那个吗？就是播客《My First Million》里讨论过的Sarah's List争议。如果你听过应该知道我指什么。

Did you've seen that? Yeah. Breakout List or, like, on, this this other podcast, My First Million, they talked about this this conflict about Sarah's List. I don't know if you yeah. If you heard that, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

所以我针对这个方向建了招聘板，现在计划直接把Japan dev那套方法论移植过来，看看在欧美/国际市场的效果。

So I built a job board for that. And my idea now is basically to take my playbook from Japan dev, just apply all that stuff, and Right. See how that goes for, like, US slash international market.

我很喜欢Sarah's List这个概念，算是未被充分开发的赚钱方式。如果你上网搜索'该找什么工作'，结果无非是工程师、医生这类常规建议。

I love that, the idea of Sarah's List. Kind of underexplored, like, way to make money in life, essentially. It's like you if you if go you online and you Google, like, oh, what what job should I get? You know, you're gonna get, like, you should be an engineer. You should be a doctor.

那律师或水管工呢？你看起来像是最普通的类型。但如果你在推特上四处打听，询问业内人士，他们会告诉你这些独特的致富路径。比如，你可以成为独立开发者，或者做兼职攒钱投资房地产。又或者进入科技行业，寻找那些被低估的火箭式成长公司。

What about a lawyer or a plumber? You seem like like the most generic thing. But if you ask around on Twitter, you ask people in the know, you ask, people like, who are in the industry, they'll tell you about these, like, unique paths that can make you a of money. Like, oh, you could be an indie hacker, or you could work part time jobs, 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.

如果选得好，拿到大量股票，光靠一份普通工作就能成为百万富翁。对吧？Sarah Sam Parr的妻子就是这么做的。这真是个超酷的招聘版创意，我对它的商业模式很好奇。

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 Sam Parr's wife did. So that's such a cool job board idea. I'm curious about the business model.

你刚才提到你们的商业模式是只在企业实际录用时才收费，类似于猎头。但你们又不是猎头，所以不会手把手指导求职者整个流程。

So, like, you you mentioned earlier your business model is that you essentially only charge companies when they actually make a placement, similar to a recruiter. But you're not a recruiter, so you're not like handholding the applicants through the process.

不是的。这个产品本质上是招聘公告板，但像猎头公司一样盈利。

No. So it the product is a job board and it's monetized kind of like a recruiting firm.

你们怎么确保企业会付款？我能想象那种情况——整整一年里，人们在访问网站，你在努力吸引求职者，却赚不到钱。可能企业在悄悄招人却不告诉你，因为似乎没法强制他们履约。

How do you ensure companies pay? Because I imagine like, know, that year long where you're like, okay. People are coming to a website. I'm trying to get, you know, applicants, like, but I'm not making any money. 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.

但现实是——显然他们确实在告知你并付款。这到底是怎么运作的？

And yet, like, here you are. Like, clearly, they are telling you and paying you. How does that how does that work?

这是个非常好的问题。随着时间推移，我逐步建立了越来越多的机制来防止这种情况，确保企业诚信履约。首先在合同中设置了滞纳金条款，拖欠时间越长，罚金越高。

That is a very good question. And as time went on, I basically created more and more ways to prevent that and keep companies honest. So the first way that I do it is in the contract that I make them sign. There is a late fee. It increases the longer that they go without paying.

这算是第一道防线。接下来我会跟踪所有申请者。我们有两种申请方式：可以通过邮件申请，这样我就能掌握你的简历、邮箱等信息，清楚知道你是谁；或者他们可以直接链接到他们的ATS（申请人跟踪系统）。

That's that's kind of the first line of defense. The next thing is that I keep track of all the applicants. So we have two ways of applying. Can either go through email, in which case I have your resume and your email and all that kind of stuff, I know exactly who you are. Or they can link directly to their, like, ATS, their applicant tracking system that they have.

如果我采用这种方式，基本上会弹出一个模态框强制所有人填写。这是个相当严格的表单，要求填写邮箱、姓名和链接（通常是GitHub或LinkedIn网址）。这样至少我能掌握这些基本信息。

And if I use that way, then I basically show a modal, and I force everyone. It's like a fairly strict modal where they all have to put in, like, some data, like email, name, and a link. Like, usually, it's like a GitHub or LinkedIn, URL. So that is the next kind of next ways. I I kinda have that data at the very least.

这样我就能查看并判断：这家公司收到这么多申请却还没招人，有点奇怪。我可以把这当作一种启发式判断。我还有另一个做法——现在我会发放礼品卡。网站上有个表单按钮，写着'通过Japandev加入公司'之类的。

So then I can look at that and say, okay, this company has had all these applicants and they haven't hired anyone yet. That's kind of weird. So I can use that as a heuristic. And 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. So I have this form, actually, on the site, there you'll notice there's a button that says, like, you know, joined a company through Japandev or whatever.

找到工作后点击按钮，告诉我你找到的工作信息，我就会送你一张3000日元的亚马逊礼品卡。这既是激励措施，也能和公司分享信息。如果他们提供了完整数据，我就能像之前说的，对可疑公司进行爬取调查，查看应聘者的LinkedIn资料或找人沟通。

Found a job. So on there, can click, and it you can basically tell me about a job that you found, and then I send you a, like, 3,000 yen Amazon gift card. So just as another incentive and also to kinda share with companies and be like, hey. I'm asking them to to send this. So, yeah, if they have all that data, I can also just go back to, like I said, if 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.

实际上，我认为这个圈子很小，公司不会轻易破坏关系。而且就像我说的，他们原本要支付高额猎头费，现在这个成本根本不算高——已经算很划算的交易了。所以我觉得不值得为此破坏与我们的关系导致无法继续使用服务，这让他们相对诚实。

In practice, I actually think that the community is so small that companies don't really wanna burn bridges. And since, like I said, they are used to paying these high fees for recruiters, it's not that expensive, to begin with. Like, they're already getting a pretty decent deal. So I don't think it's really worth burning that relationship with us, over that and, you know, not being able to use the service anymore. So I think that keeps them relatively honest.

如果不行，我还有几招备用策略。

And if not, then I have a few other kind of tactics that I use.

太棒了！Eric，这次交流真的很酷。你两个月前提到收入是8万3，之后经历了一个低谷月。希望下个月能突破10万。——我也希望如此。

That's awesome. Well, Eric, this has been really cool. You you mentioned you I think two months ago, you were at 83 k, and then you kinda had a a down month. So I'm I'm hoping for a 100 month for next month. Me too.

确实。显然，你积累了丰富经验，学到了很多，但我们很多听众都是新手。那么对于刚起步的人，你有什么建议？

Meanwhile Yeah. Meanwhile, obviously, you've had a lot of you've had a lot of experience. You've learned a ton, but a lot of our listeners are new. So what's your advice for people who are just starting out?

是的，我之前提到过这点。如果要把建议浓缩成一点，那就是：找到一个客户。因为没有客户就没有生意，对吧？在此之前，你可以做无数件事——优化各种细节、编写代码等等。

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. Because when you don't have a customer, you don't have a business. Right? And before that point, there are, like, an infinite number of things that you could do, all these things that you could optimize and you could write code.

我自己就犯过这个错误。我花了整整六个月搭建Kubernetes集群，开发各种API，结果发现根本没人需要这个产品。人很容易陷入这种舒适区——我作为程序员就只想写代码。但你必须学会喊停。

I made this makes mistake myself. I literally was building this Kubernetes cluster for six months, all these all these APIs and stuff for, ultimately, like like a a product that no one really wanted, and it's so easy to just do that and be in their kind of comfort zone. You know, I was a programmer, so I just wanted to write code. But then if you just say, okay. Forget that.

合上笔记本，提交代码，别再纠结设计或logo这些细节。它们现在根本不重要。

Close the laptop, you know, whatever. Commit your code. Quit trying to mess with the design or whatever. It's fine. You don't need a logo.

直接打电话联系潜在客户，先争取到一个客户。因为一旦有了客户，所有不确定性都会消散，其他无关紧要的事自然会被过滤掉。你能专注在真正重要的事上：服务这个客户，获取下一个客户，逐步扩大规模。这时你才会真正理解商业的本质——从项目蜕变为真正的生意。

Just literally get on the phone, talk to some people, and just get a customer. Because from that point on, once you have that, then everything all that kind of, like, uncertainty, all the other unimportant things not fall away, and you can just focus on what matters, which is that customer, getting the next customer, and, you know, scaling from there. And you'll see, like, what actually matters in a business. Right? And it it goes from being a project to really, like, an actual business.

这就是我最坚定的建议——不是下周，不是下个月，而是今天现在立刻去争取一个客户。没有比这更有价值的事了。

And, so that is the one thing that I would just definitely do. It's, like, not next week, not next month, today, right now. Literally, just go get a customer right now. And I I think that's the most beneficial thing you can possibly do.

立刻去争取客户吧！Eric Turner，非常感谢参与节目。能告诉听众在哪里可以了解更多关于你、你的新求职平台以及Japan Dev的信息吗？

Go get a customer right now. Eric Turner, thanks a ton for coming on the show. 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?

是的。我的主要项目是japandev.com。对，中间有个连字符，不过忘了也没关系，两个域名我都有。

Yep. So my main project is japandev.com. Yeah. There's a hyphen, but even if you forget, it's okay. I have both.

另一个是rocketships.i0，如果你想找工作的话。目前处于原型和实用之间的状态，但已经有一些职位信息了。如果你想看看那些我认为风险回报比更好的公司列表，可以去看看。不然就直接在Twitter上联系我，账号是下划线etdev。

And then rocketships.i0 is the other one if you are looking for a job. Right now, kind of a state between, like, a prototype and actually useful, but there are already some jobs and stuff. So if you wanna see a list of companies where, I think, you know, there's a better kind of risk reward profile, yeah, check that out. Otherwise, just hit me up on Twitter. It's underscore e t dev.

etdev这个用户名被占了。所以我在其他平台比如GitHub上都用这个。Twitter地址是twitter.com/_etdev。另外如果你在东京，现在因为边境开放很多人过来，随时联系我，我一直想认识其他独立开发者。

E t dev was taken. That's where I what's up what I am on everything else, like GitHub and everything. But, yeah, twitter.com/_etdev. 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. Hit me up because I'm always looking to meet other indie hackers.

你在麦当劳的时候100日元兑1美元。我刚查了100日元兑68美分。我要直接过来买了。

A 100 yen was a dollar when you were McDonald's. You just checked a 100 yen and 68¢. I'm gonna come and just buy it.

太疯狂了吧？是啊，简直荒谬。现在真是超值，真的。

That insane? Yeah. Yeah. It's ridiculous. It's such a good deal right now, seriously.

好的，那到时候见。非常感谢你能来，Eric。

So Yeah. Well, I'll see you out there. Thanks so much, Eric, for coming

谢了，兄弟。

Thanks, man.