The Future of apply.coop

Back in June, we launched apply.coop as a job board for values-driven organizations.

It was our first commercial product, so the concept intentionally simple: we'd enable co-ops and nonprofits (what we call "Workplaces") to post open positions on the site for $30 a pop. People looking for work ("Job Seekers") could browse the jobs for free and connect directly with a Workplace if interested in a position. That was the whole product.

We knew that, like every new website, we would face a chicken-and-egg dilemma:

• Until we have a lot of high-quality job listings, Job Seekers won't visit the site.
• Until we have a critical mass of site visitors, Workplaces won't post jobs (much less pay for them).

Most startups address this problem by buying traffic—i.e., using their investors' money to lure visitors to the site through advertising, paid influencer promotions, and affiliate marketing rather than drawing them organically through word of mouth and search engines.

We don't have investor cash or a marketing team to run such campaigns, so buying traffic wasn't an option. We hoped that word of the site would spread through the co-op community and naturally draw Workplaces and Job Seekers, and it did for a few weeks, but then the job market cratered in the second half of 2025, particularly among non-profits that rely on government funding. Also, as traffic to our Bluesky Directory site continued to grow, we became more involved in decentralized publishing technologies like ATProtocol and the data ownership movement, and now spend most of our time thinking about product opportunities in those spaces. On top of all that, from what we've read, people don't use search engines to find stuff anymore, including jobs; they use AI chatbots. Unfortunately for us, apply.coop blocks AI crawlers. 🤷

In light of all that, we decided to rebuild apply.coop as a directory of values-driven Workplaces. Maybe "directories" are becoming our thing? The directory will be 100% free, and human Limeleaf members will curate and vet the Workplaces to ensure they operate in accordance with cooperative principles. If you'd like to add your Workplace, check our Eligibility Requirements and get in touch.

apply.coop cost us very little to build and operate, and we gained a ton of knowledge from developing it that we can draw on as we build more products. Stay tuned for details about all that in 2026!