Why I built Trackur

Every job search starts the same way: you apply to a few places, things seem manageable, and then suddenly you have 15 tabs open and a spreadsheet that stopped being useful 10 applications ago.

I've been there more times than I can count.

The spreadsheet problem

Spreadsheets are the default answer to "I need to track something." And for a while, and at small scale, they work. But job applications are not fixed data. They have different states of being—they move through stages, they have next steps, they need follow-ups. A flat grid of cells doesn't capture any of that naturally.

You end up with color-coded rows, conditional formatting rules (that you eventually forget about), and a creeping sense that you're spending more time maintaining the spreadsheet than actually job hunting. Not to mention that since Excel isn't the most simple of tools, so all that customization takes time and know-how to set up.

The app problem

Ok, so you deicde Excel sucks for this task, and you look for an app. And you find dozens of them. Most of them want a monthly subscription. Many of them have "AI-powered" features you didn't ask for: AI resume writers, AI interview coaches, AI cover letter generators. The tool that was supposed to simplify your life now wants to be your career advisor.

Features cost money—I get it. A $2,000 Breville Touch coffee maker is expensive because it has a lot more features than a $20 Mr. Coffee. That makes sense to me, but hear me out: maybe I don't want to pay 100x more when I just need a basic coffee maker?

I didn't want a career advisor + automated job application submission tool that would butcher my data + AI bloat. I wanted a simple visual organizer where I could drag a card from one column to another Kanban-style, and just get on with my day.

What Trackur is

Trackur is exactly what I wanted: a Kanban board for job applications. You add a job, it shows up as a card. You drag it to a new stage when things change. Then, add your next steps or to-do items if you want to track follow-ups. You can also switch to a table view if that's more your speed. And if you need to, you can export your data to a CSV to import into Excel or Google Sheets (for whatever reason).

That's it. That's the whole thing.

No AI. No gamification. No daily motivational quotes. No social features. No "you've got this!" pop-ups. No f***ing rocket emojis.

Why it's free

I built this because I needed it, because I wanted to learn more about React, and because I wanted to learn how to ship a real product. Right now, the hosting costs are minimal, and charging money for something this simple felt wrong... especially when I myself didn't feel like paying $30 a month for other products like this.

If Trackur scales and we see user demand for features that require costly infrastructure, the basic free version will ALWAYS be available as well.

If you find Trackur useful, that's genuinely all the motivation I need to keep working on it. Tell your friends to spend less time screwing around with Excel sheets and more time doing what matters: hunting for your next opportunity.