Rezi AI's Growth Strategy: #1 AI Powered Free ATS Resume Builder

Rezi AI dubs itself as the best ATS-friendly Resume Builder in the world. ATS (applicant tracking system) is a software used by companies to automatically scan resumes for keywords before a human ever sees them.

Rezi AI has the perfect offer: Beat the ATS with Ease.

1. The Genesis of Rezi

Jacob Jacquet graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a 2.2 GPA.

Despite his low GPA, he got interviews at top companies like Google and Goldman Sachs because he knew how to write resumes that passed ATS.

Instead of taking a corporate job, Jacob decided to turn his resume knowledge into a company called Rezi in May 2015.

At first, Rezi sold Microsoft Word resume templates on a WordPress website. The catchy name helped position the company as a tech-focused alternative to expensive career consultants. 6 months after starting Rezi, Jacob moved to South Korea.

2. Early Days in South Korea

He choose South Korea because it is the 3-largest English-speaking market after China and India. Many people speak English, go to college, and work at global companies. It was the perfect secondary market for Rezi to develop and get government funding.

Jacob first came to South Korea at age 23 to teach English in Icheon, a small countryside city. After six months, he moved to Seoul to be closer to the startup scene. He worked as an English teacher from 10 AM to 6 PM. He developed Rezi in cafes before and after work.

During this time, Rezi got into the Seoul Global Startup Center, a government-sponsored co-working space for international startups.

They failed to get into the K-Startup Grand Challenge at first but made it the next year after another team dropped out.

They won the competition and received 32 million won (about $30,000).

3. Rezi's Growth

Rezi evolved from resume templates to software over 14 months.

They tried various business models:

• B2B software for university career centers (didn't work)

• Recruitment services (didn't work)

• A search engine for recruitment (didn't work)

They eventually returned to university software, rebuilt it to be free, and gained traction. In 13 months, they had around 120,000 users with zero marketing budget.

Collaborations with AppSumo and StackCommerce played a crucial role in Rezi's growth, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

4. Partnerships

A. Appsumo: The Discount Deal

In April 2020, Rezi teamed up with AppSumo, a website that offers software at discounted rates.

This move was genius. It brought in 10,000 new users, a whopping 20% of Rezi's user base at the time.

AppSumo's marketing expertise helped communicate Rezi's value proposition effectively to a large audience.

Rezi gained about 25,000 users through AppSumo partnership.

B. StackCommerce: The Media Magnet

Rezi successfully launched multiple versions of their product on Product Hunt, a platform known for helping tech products go viral among early adopters.

After launching on Product Hunt, Rezi partnered with StackCommerce.

This revenue-focused partnership was a game-changer. Here's how it worked:

1. Rezi created a deal page

2. StackCommerce worked with publishers to create content

3. This content led people to Rezi's deal page

The result? Rezi got featured in 20 major publications like The New York Post and CNBC News. Talk about a publicity boost!

C. University Partnerships: Reaching Students

Rezi got clever with a B2B2C (Business-to-Business-to-Consumer) model in Korea.

They partnered with universities to reach students directly. Seoul National University became their first paying client.

The university recommends Rezi to students, essentially becoming a marketing arm for the product.

They did resume seminars where the attendees grew from 30 to 300 before COVID-19 shut them down.

4. Rezi's SEO Strategy

Despite having an amazing AI resume tool, Rezi struggled due to poor marketing and no SEO strategy. But everything changed when they partnered with Skale in late 2022.

It gets an estimated 898.8K visits per month.

Skale's approach was methodical and effective:

1. Fix the foundation: Revamping Rezi's internal linking structure boosted performance.

2. Build content clusters: Creating content around resumes, cover letters, and resignation letters solidified Rezi's expertise.

3. Leverage AI: Rezi's AI capabilities became a key selling point for high-quality content and site optimization.

4. Target specific audiences: Focusing on the education sector and creating tailored content for different job sectors and seniority levels.

5. Link building: Combined with the content strategy, this led to significant growth.

From October 2022 to June 2024, Rezi saw:

• 86.18% increase in revenue

• 243.18% surge in sign-ups

• 292.36% rise in non-branded clicks (clicks from search terms not including "Rezi")

A standout success was a blog post on resignation letter examples. After optimization and link building, it attracted 109,000 non-branded clicks in June 2024.

Skale targeted terms like "AI resume builder", attracting both AI enthusiasts and traditional job seekers.

According to Similarweb, Rezi gets most of its traffic from Reddit.

5. Affiliate Program with Job Boards and Career Websites

Rezi also launched an affiliate program for job boards and career websites. Partners earn a 30% commission for promoting Rezi's AI resume software.

It's a win-win: job seekers get help, and partners earn money.

These partnerships weren't just smart moves. They were rocket fuel for Rezi's growth. By teaming up with the right partners, Rezi overcame marketing hurdles, boosted their brand, and attracted users from all corners of the internet.

6. Viral Marketing

In October 2023, Rezi implemented a "viral growth hack" by giving away premium subscriptions for free. This campaign resulted in nearly 70,000 sign-ups in a single day, demonstrating viral potential.

In the early stages of growth, Jacob made a deliberate post on Reddit with the expectation of receiving tens of thousands of upvotes. This strategy worked initially, bringing in 11,000 new users in just under 10 hours.

However, Reddit's anti-advertising policies eventually led to the removal of the post.

Rezi capitalized on the growing interest in AI by focusing on keywords like "AI resume builder." This strategy helped them tap into viral trends surrounding AI technology.

Rezi was the first resume builder to incorporate GPT into its workflow in December 2020, long before the ChatGPT boom. This early adoption positioned Rezi as the industry leader in AI-powered resume creation.

7. Operational Excellence and Financial Highlights

Rezi maintains a lean, development-focused team of 25 employees based in Seoul, South Korea. This strategic location helps keep development costs manageable while tapping into a growing startup ecosystem. Average salary in South Korea is around 2500 USD per month.

Rezi AI has a customer lifetime value of $101.90 and the employee costs around 24.90% of total expenses. The ad costs are currently $0 but previously they hired an ad agency for $15,000/month but it didn't work out.

Today, Rezi is thriving. It's been used by about 2,890,927 job seekers and is currently at $226,343 MRR and has made a lifetime revenue of $4,745,647.

Jacob's genius was finding a common problem (creating ATS-friendly resumes) and solving it with technology. And the partnerships took him to the next level before AI came into foray to pour fire onto gasoline.

For job seekers, Rezi offers a powerful tool to create resumes that get you more interviews.

For entrepreneurs, it's a lesson in finding your niche and leveraging partnerships to grow.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

If an influencer has already made a top video that ranks in your niche, just buy them for a small charge. I bet you can slash the charges in half.

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Those who have raised a funding need help. This should work for essential services like being a ghostwriter for a founder or sending cold emails to their particular niche so they get more clients.

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2nd order effects of AI Girlfriends was not on my bingo card.

You can do this in many niches:

• Practice your sales calls by creating a Fictional Clients who gives objection after objection

• Practice your medical examination by creating a MD Doctor who asks difficult questions

One recommended video on Getting Leads From Hidden Facebook Groups

This video covers how to use Facebook groups to get an amazing source of free leads.

Rabbit Holes

1. Reddit marketing strategy: 8 organic ways to promote your brand without being salesy - Simple tips on how to use Reddit to promote your product.

2. Minimize your Time to Product/Market Fit - Startups die because of lack of customers, not inability to build technology. To make up for it, you must ship fast and get to PMF even faster.

3. Deliberate practice beats every other form of training, even via transfer learning - TIL the reason Brazilians are better at soccer than anyone else. They have a culture of playing a pickup game confined in a small place with fewer players. This game has skills that help them later on with soccer.

Until next time!

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