Solution: Niceboard offered Eliot an easy-to-use platform with just the right features to keep his launch and management simple, while providing an intuitive, user-friendly platform to his non-technical community. All in all, a much faster and more cost-effective option than developing a custom job board from scratch.
Impact: The foundation’s new job board generated over $40k in revenue, which was directly applied to fund local initiatives (such as building the Inglewood pumptrack!) and facilitated the placement of key roles for candidates from diverse backgrounds in the cycling industry.
Finding Niceboard really made me convinced that we can just build this job board very easily. So I spun it up and from the very beginning we got most of the top bike companies in the world on the job board.
Eliot on the benefits of a fully-hosted solution…
Challenge
Eliot Jackson, a former professional bike rider, founded Grow Cycling Foundation to provide access to underrepresented communities in the cycling world. Part of this was facilitating career paths into an industry in which job seekers traditionally had to rely on connections.
He recognized that while there are many job boards available, none of them actually cater to the needs of the cycling industry. This meant that job seekers in this niche—from bike shop mechanics to cycling coaches and software developers—struggled to find their next opportunity or break into the market.
A job board would also allow the foundation to secure more funding by allowing employers to donate through job postings, rather than their charitable giving budgets alone.
Envisioning a centralized platform for the cycling community, Eliot was eager to get a job board up and running—fast.
As soon as I started to look into it, I realized that there's a lot more complexity to coding a job board than you would imagine. And we really needed things to work right out of the gate. It was really important that companies trust us, so we didn’t want any bugs. A custom-build job board wasn’t really worth the effort.
Solution
Considering to build a custom job board from scratch, Eliot found fully-hosted Niceboard to offer a much easier and faster solution to set up his Grow Cycling Foundation job board.
Launching the job board quickly was crucial for Eliot, as the foundation was gaining momentum to be capitalized on. With Niceboard, he could implement a fully self-serve solution that required minimal ongoing effort. The automatic updates and new features added by Niceboard felt like having a dedicated engineering team at his disposal—with his job board remaining relevant.
Ease of use for both job seekers and employers was particularly important since the majority of the cycling community is non-technical. And Niceboard delivered.
The reasonable cost of the job board software allowed the Grow Cycling Foundation to price its job listings low enough so even small bike shops could afford to post a job while still staying profitable.
The best thing about Niceboard is that I don’t have to do much. It’s up and running, and it’s doing its thing for our company. I can’t remember a time where a customer has come to me and complained about a bug. It just works and it has worked for years.
Why Eliot chose Niceboard over competitors…
Impact
The new Niceboard-powered job board has been a resounding success, generating over $40k in revenue going directly to initiatives of the foundation and shaping the cycling industry by connecting decision makers with impactful roles in the niche.
In the 3 years of running the job board, Eliot has received only positive feedback from users loving the platform, and reports he has not had to deal with any customer complaints.
But the best part for the founder is that the job board has had actual impact on his community, opening up the tight-knit industry to newcomers by creating employment opportunities for everyone, no matter the background.
- Revenue generation: The job board has generated $40k in revenue, 100% of which is funding the foundation’s non profit initiatives, such as cycling school programs, bike donations, and a bike track in Los Angeles attracting over 70k visitors.
- Shaping the bike industry through employment: With 1,000 jobs posted and over 15,000 applications, the job board has helped individuals from diverse backgrounds to land employment within the cycling industry. These include pivotal roles such as a marketing hire to the biggest bicycle media site in the world and an engineering hire to the world’s biggest bike component manufacturer.
- Community engagement: The job board has fostered a sense of community in the cycling industry by un-siloing job opportunities, making it easier for newcomers and seasoned experts alike to navigate the limited job market and find their place, ultimately building the future of cycling.