Scott Allen: A lot of great business ideas come from entrepreneurs “scratching their own itch”, i.e., having a problem, not finding a solution in the marketplace, and then creating it themselves. As I understand, that’s what happened with you, right? What prompted you to start JibberJobber?
Jason Alba: I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but really, I never thought I’d be able to invent that “better mousetrap.” During my job search I realized there was a huge issue with organizing and managing the entire process and data, and that no one was addressing it for the job seeker. I’m guessing it’s because no one really cares about the job seeker. They have two interesting characteristics: (1) usually, they don’t have any money, or at least that’s a stereotype about job seekers, and (2) they are in this state for a limited period of time (so they won’t be long-term customers). I realized that those two issues where inconsequential to the model that I was building, furthermore, they are not necessarily true. So I created a solution to fill a void in the market.
SA: When you first started the business, were you expecting that it would become not only your full-time occupation, but a growing company?
JA: At first I started it with the idea that it would become an income stream, to stabilize the income I would get from my next job. I never wanted an employer to have 100% control of my income anymore.
SA: At what point did you realize that it was going to take off and decide to devote yourself to it fully instead of your job search?
JA: I realized JibberJobber was something important as I called career professionals to run the idea past them. I called state workforce departments, university career centers, career coaches and resume writers, and I found an overwhelming response that validated the idea. It was interesting because I had spent months on a job search where no one was responding to my calls or e-mails, so to get ANY response from these professionals was amazing… but to get 100% of the people I called to say that this was huge, and very needed… that was my sign.
SA: You’ve bootstrapped your business, and as I understand, you run it pretty lean and mean. What do you do yourself, what kind of staff do you have, and what do you outsource?
JA: I think it’s important to note that most of the stuff I have done for the past two years with JibberJobber are things that I’ve done before, as an employee of another company. If I didn’t have skills and experience in project management, business analysis, web design, hosting, development, sales, customer support, etc. then I would have had to find the talent… and that would have been very expensive (even if offshored). So having the skills allowed me to bootstrap from the beginning. I hired a programmer to do all the development, even though I have programmed for years. I hired a QA engineer to do the QA, even though I could have done that. We brought on another part-time programmer … all three of these professionals are, as my college programming professor would say, “high speed, low drag.” I focused on marketing, PR, relationships, branding, and design of the product. I’m starting to look at professional salespeople to help expand into some new markets, but for now, this is our team.
SA: While you started off targeting job seekers, as your product grew, you realized that you actually had a much broader market. How did you expand to those markets without diluting your message to your core audience?
JA: Great question. Very early on I realized that my branding was appropriate for job seekers, but not much more. Within the first 30 days we had to rebrand so that JibberJobber was recognized as a career management tool, not just a job search tool. I didn’t want someone to use it for 3 months and then never come back…I wanted them to use it for the rest of their career. This was a huge rebranding project. As we’ve grown, and our brand has gained recognition, we’ve seen all kinds of people use JibberJobber, from freelancers and contractors to small businesses looking for a CRM tool… I don’t say that we compete in the CRM market, which is a murky, busy space, but we do have people who use JibberJobber as their small business CRM (that’s exactly how I use it). The most important tool to no dilute the message to my core audience has been my JibberJobber blog… I blog about stuff there that helps people understand what they should be doing and thinking with regard to their career, whether they are in a job search or not.