Recruvo
A jobs and housing marketplace for Greek seasonal tourism, built and launched in a single summer. Web app, iPhone and Android, in Greek and English: every listing states the pay, every job shows where the worker will live, and the room for the season is booked in the same app.
recruvo.gr
At a glance
- Challenge
- Tens of thousands of seasonal workers every summer, and a market that ran on Facebook posts.
- What we built
- Jobs with the pay on every listing and homes for the season, in one app on web, iPhone and Android.
- Outcome
- 5
- weeks from the first line of code to the App Store
- Web, iPhone and Android, in two languages, by September 2026.
- Platform
- recruvo.gr · App Store · Google Play
- Scope
- Our own product — brand, design and full-stack build
- Timeline
- June to September 2026
- Status
- Live on three platforms, open for the 2027 season
- Year
- 2026
The brief
- platforms live: web, iPhone and Android
- 3
- marketplaces in one app: jobs and homes
- 2
- of listings state the pay — a salary is required to post
- 100%
- guides, each with a Greek and an English edition
- 15
- weeks from the first line of code to the App Store
- 5
- months from prototype to three public stores
- 4
Tens of thousands of people move to a Greek island every summer to work, and the entire market ran on Facebook posts.
Greek tourism runs on seasonal staff, and hiring them is still done by hand: a post in a group, a phone call, a promise. The post names a role and a town. It almost never says the pay, and it never shows the staff accommodation — even though “where will I live” is the first question anyone relocating to an island asks.
Workers coming from abroad face the same uncertainty in a language they do not read, and enough fake offers ask for an “agency fee” that people have learned to distrust everything. Employers have the mirror problem: a hundred messages, no CVs, no way to tell who is serious, and no way to show what their team and their housing actually look like.
We work in this industry, so Recruvo is the product we wanted to exist. It went from the first line of code to the App Store in five weeks, and to three platforms in two languages by the end of the season.
The approach
Pay is never hidden
A salary is required to post. That one rule makes every listing comparable, it feeds the pay report, and it is the reason a worker opens Recruvo before a Facebook group. Nobody else in the Greek market enforces it. An employer who will not name a number does not get a listing, which turned out to be a filter as much as a rule.
You see where you will live
Staff accommodation is shown on video, with the amenities and the distance to work. For a job on an island that is half the decision, and nobody else shows it. The same staff house can be published as a home in one tap, so the employer's spare room becomes something a worker can actually book.
Video instead of paperwork
A 60-second video CV says more than a PDF for a waiter, a bartender or a receptionist. Employers see the person; applicants who have never had a CV still get their shot, and an AI builder writes them a written one in minutes. One tap applies, and the conversation carries on in the app's own chat.
The job and the room in one app
Recruvo opens in Jobs mode. One tap turns the whole app into Homes: entire places and rooms for stays of two months or more, filtered by region, move-in date and rent, on a live map. One account, one inbox, one profile. Landlords are verified, addresses stay hidden until a booking is accepted, and contact details are masked in chat until both sides agree, so the “let's move to WhatsApp” scam never starts.
Built to be the answer when someone searches
People search for “work in Santorini”, not “job board”. Every region in the country has its own page for jobs and for homes, in both languages; listings appear in Google's jobs box and reach the search engines within seconds of going live. A pay report recomputed every hour from real listings gives the market a number it never had, and a plain-language inventory of every open job and home means an AI assistant asked for “a seasonal job in Santorini with accommodation” has a source that can answer.
What kept going wrong
Every rule in the product answers something that kept going wrong in this market.
- A listing said “good pay, depending on experience” and nothing moreso a salary is now required to post. Every listing is comparable, and the pay report is built from the same numbers.
- Nobody found out where they would sleep until after they had said yesso the staff house is on the listing itself, on video, with its amenities and the distance to work.
- A waiter with ten seasons behind him had no CV to sendso a 60-second video CV counts as an application, and an AI builder writes a written one in minutes for anyone who wants it.
- Finding the job and finding the room were two searches, in two different placesso one tap switches the whole app from Jobs to Homes, on one account, with one inbox and one profile.
- Fake offers asking for an “agency fee” had taught people to distrust everythingso landlords are verified, addresses stay hidden until a booking is accepted, contact details are masked in chat, and everything carries a report button.
- Workers applying from abroad were reading Greek listings they could not understandso every screen, every region page and all fifteen guides have an English edition written for them, not translated at them.
Nothing in the app is translated from English. Every word is written the way Greek job boards and Greek people actually write, because a correctly phrased button does more for trust than any feature. On top of that sits the season's own layer: a member pass that lives in Apple Wallet and unlocks discounts at partner venues, Coins earned by completing a profile or inviting a friend and never bought, a feed of new listings, partner offers and giveaways filtered to the member's region, and a business hub where employers post, review video CVs and chat.
Jobs, with the pay on the card
Homes, one tap away on the same account
Result
From the first line of code to the App Store in five weeks, and to web, iPhone and Android in two languages by the end of the season.
Recruvo is open for the 2027 season on recruvo.gr, the App Store and Google Play. Every listing on it states a salary, which is the one thing the Greek market has never had, and it is the rule the rest of the product hangs from: it makes listings comparable, it feeds the hourly pay report, and it is the reason a worker opens the app before a Facebook group. Shipping the whole thing in one summer only worked because the scope was cut down to what a seasonal worker actually decides on — the pay, the bed, and a real person on the other end — and everything else waited its turn. Homes shipped last and changed the product the most: the job and the room stopped being two separate searches, and the employer's staff house became something a worker can book.
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