Remotive is a job board and community for people seeking remote tech jobs. Rodolphe Dutel started it in 2014 as a newsletter while working remotely at Buffer, because friends kept asking how to find a job like his. He ran it on the side for two years, then left Buffer in 2017 to run it full time.
A remote job that his friends wanted
Dutel is from Paris. Before Remotive, he worked at Allianz, at Accenture as a management consultant and in sales at Google. He also liked side projects: Tumblr blogs, newsletters, startup weekends and an online art-sharing project. None of them took off, but he learned something from each one.
In 2014 he joined Buffer, a social media software company that worked entirely remotely, which was rare at the time. He started in business development and later became Director of Operations. He worked from Paris and travelled more than half the time.
His friends noticed. They kept asking him how he had landed a remote job and how they could do the same. There was little good material on the subject. So he started writing about it.
A blog post becomes a newsletter
Remotive started with a blog post on Medium about working remotely and being productive. He kept writing, and readers signed up for updates. Once he had more than 400 subscribers, he gave the project a name, from remote plus productive, and set up a website.
The weekly newsletter shared the best articles about remote work. It grew to more than 5,000 subscribers within about three months. In early 2015 he added Remotive Jobs, a hand-picked list of remote startup jobs, and then a blog. Remotive Jobs reached 1,677 upvotes on Product Hunt.
A side project he did not need to monetise
For the first two years, Remotive was strictly a side gig. Dutel worked full time at Buffer, which publishes its salaries, and was earning over $100,000 a year. He loved the job and did not feel any urge to quit. He also did not need Remotive to make money, and had no plan to go full time when he started.
That made a difference to how it grew. Remotive did not pay for ads. Dutel used what he had learned at Buffer about sharing on social media, and Buffer and its employees often promoted the project. Because people could see it was one person’s side project, run out of genuine interest in remote work, they were happy to share it and recommend it.
He also published useful spreadsheets, such as remote workers’ salaries and lists of remote-friendly startups. They gave readers real data and spread widely. By early 2016 the newsletter went to more than 15,000 remote workers.
Going full time
Between 2014 and 2016, Remotive made little money, from newsletter ads and job board listings. Growth was steady rather than explosive. In 2017 Dutel left Buffer to work on Remotive. At first it brought in around $60,000 a year, and he added a paid community.
Over time he moved the focus to the job board and to services for companies that wanted to hire remotely. He supported himself fully from Remotive, which he built without outside funding. In 2020, when the pandemic pushed millions of people to work from home, interest in remote jobs grew sharply. Dutel described it as remote work jumping a decade forward in three months.
What the Remotive story shows
- The idea came from the job. Dutel’s remote job at Buffer made him the person his friends asked for advice.
- No pressure to earn helped it grow. With a good salary, he could keep Remotive free and useful for years.
- Being a side project built goodwill. People shared it because it looked like what it was: one person helping others.
- Content came first, the business later. Articles and a newsletter built the audience that the job board then served.
More businesses like this one are in marketplaces that started as side projects, including The Muse and AngelList.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Remotive?
Rodolphe Dutel, a Paris-based former Google and Buffer employee. He started it in 2014.
Was Remotive a side project?
Yes. Dutel ran it alongside his full-time remote job at Buffer for about two years, and left to work on it full time in 2017.
How did Remotive start?
As a blog post on Medium about productive remote work, followed by a weekly newsletter. A remote job board followed in early 2015.
How did Remotive grow without ads?
Through social media sharing, support from Buffer and its staff, goodwill towards a one-person side project, and useful data such as remote salary spreadsheets.
Sources
- Bootstrapping to $12,000/mo as a non-technical founder, Indie Hackers
- Operations at Buffer and founder of Remotive, Rodolphe Dutel, Buffer Community, February 2016
- In three months, remote work jumped a decade forward, Welcome to the Jungle, June 2020
- Remotive review, Indie Tools
- Rodolphe Dutel: we should all learn to question our assumptions, Surf Office
- Rodolphe Dutel interview, TalentUp
- Remotive Jobs 2.0, Product Hunt
- A site about remote jobs making $156,000, Indie Hustle
