Hashnode is a free platform for tech writers and readers. In fact, one of the key propositions of Hashnode is that knowledge is and will always be completely free. This immediately raises questions about business sustainability. This post explores a few ways hashnode can monetize its platform without compromising its policies.
Option#1: Jobs
Hashnode is home to a big tech talent pool with diversified expertise. At the same time, recruiters are looking for such tech talents and finding it hard to screen.
Hashnode can develop a basic categorization/expertise model where every post gets these:
- A score. This score is dependent on popularity (number of likes, shares, etc.)
- Tags (Ex: Java, Python, etc.)
Every comment also gets the same treatment, though at a smaller multiple.
Running this over time builds a list of users, with their scores across various tech stacks. At this moment, Hashnode can launch a beta, get interested techies sign-up for jobs, and onboard recruiters too in parallel. The recruiter platform could have a filter basis:
- Location
- Tech-stack they're looking for
- Minimum filters for the technologies they're looking for.
Recruiters can be charged a fixed subscription fee to access the evolving set of users. The model can keep learning basis inputs provided by the recruiters.
Considering the growing popularity of the gig economy, another approach could be to expose a platform for agencies who're looking to hire developers on a contractual/project basis.
Option#2: Blogging platforms for companies
A lot of companies have tech blogs in which they talk about the engineering and product problems they solve for. A lot of companies also have internal blogging platforms which they use for internal documentation/training, and most of them are based on Medium.
Since the tech community loves Hashnode, and the same community in their respective companies write those blogs, they could be endorsers and adopters of Hashnode.
- The content which needs a market, gets the market as those articles are published on Hashnode as well, and get exposed to the entire developer community, while the companies still keep the domains and hence the ownerships.
- Advanced analytics could be created for such companies. More use-cases will come and evolve.
Companies can also start using the platform for internal documentation, and knowledge sharing. Current internal blogging platforms (Ex: Confluence) are too dull and boring. This will have to come up with multiple internal integrations (Ex: Jira)
Option#3: The Hashnode Store
Themed collectibles, t-shirts, swaggers, PDFs of popular posts, books, and accessories could be sold. They won't be pushed, nor advertised openly. Could reside as a permanent link in the menu.
Benchmark: A similar store run by Tim Urban on his popular blog series Wait But Why: store.waitbutwhy.com
Revenue could be split between Hashnode and the content owner. Completely optional for a content owner to onboard this program.
Option#4: Online courses
Someone following beginner-level blogs on Python would be interested to learn more about this language. Hashnode can have partnerships with online course platforms (Ex: Udemy, Coursera, DataCamp, etc.) that would show beginner-level Python courses towards the bottom of the article page.
Trade-off: Hashnode needs to evaluate if selling courses this way aligns with its product strategy. It also needs to be cognizant of the fact that this will lead the writers to create more content along those lines to achieve monetization.
Option#5: Tech product explainers
There could be dedicated blogs on people/representatives explaining their tech products. Leads generated through HashNode will accordingly be charged.
Trade-off: This might turn into an advertisement platform, which will turn off the users. Therefore, proper monitoring/control systems need to be built.
Option#6: Support/donations
The Tech community loves Hashnode. To sustain and keep running this without advertisement, a support account (Ex: Patreon) could be created. If the company decides not to choose any other monetization scheme, this could be a fallback to keep the blog running.
Credits: Online research.