The founder and president of TweetMyJOBS.com spoke to a group of young entrepreneurs at the Robert. H. Smith School of Business Friday afternoon on the story behind his company’s success.
Gary Zukowski had lunch with a group of approximately 12 students and a few faculty members where he discussed how he started his business.
Between 2008 and 2009 people began to realize Twitter was “more than just celebrity gossip,” according to Zukowski. “The economy was in the pits and news sources had to cover it every day.”
Zukowski created a website that combined Twitter with jobs.
“There weren’t a lot of players and we were a newsworthy story,” he said.
His product was featured by many news originations including CBS, CNN and MSNBC. He didn’t pay for any advertising, with the exception of a few experiments with Facebook and Google ads that were not successful.
“Without a lot of money, a lot of it is luck,” said Zukowski, “We were in the right place at the right time. We were very fortunate at the orb we got into.”
The event was organized by Alla Corey, Program Manager for the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, an institute for students who want to build their own business. “The students had great questions, they really grilled Gary,” said Corey.
Zukowski applied for the trademark ‘TweetMyJOBS’ on April 17, 2009. He had no idea that Twitter applied for the trademark ‘tweet’ the day before. Twitter had waited about two years to do so. Zukowski received the trademark in November of 2009; Twitter was denied.
The setting was informal. Zukowski introduced himself and shook each person’s hand when he entered the room. The students, both graduate and undergraduate, engaged in a conversation with Zukowski. They asked him many questions and some shared their own ideas.
TweetMyJOBS.com now has a backer. “It took 17 days to go from offer to close!” said Zukowski. The terms of agreement included the “three big bullets” he said everyone should look for: 1. Money up front; 2. Some sort of equity; 3. You want a job.
Everything at TweetMyJOBS.com is done through the web. His best sales representative is a stay-at-home mom.
“[There is] no brick and mortar… we’re social media, we’re virtual,” said Zukowski.
His employees’ locations range from North Carolina, to Massachusetts, to Hungary.
Within the next five years it is going to become clear that social media is here for the long haul, according to Zukowski. There is going to be a “tsunami of money coming out for social media… If you’re looking to invest in something, social media is it.”
Zukowski ended the lunch reminding the students that they must have passion.
“You’re going to work yourself into a funk from seeing your competitors pass you,” he said. He also said that it’s important to demand that passion from employees as well, in order to be successful. “My employees are addicted to TweetMyJOBS.”