How CakeResume is taking on LinkedIn to become the largest social network for professionals in Asia
It’s been five years since we last interviewed Trantor Liu, founder and CEO of CakeResume. He has now built it from a single-person startup to a strong 30+ team with more than 2.2 million registered users worldwide and a growing talent pool of 500,000+ resumes on its database. Now after a successful seed round from Mynavi, one of the largest staffing firms in Japan, they are ready to take on an even bigger share of the market. “We want to be the Asian equivalent of LinkedIn and become the largest social network for professionals in the APAC region.”
If you’re working in the tech industry in Taiwan, chances are you’ve probably heard of CakeResume already. This fast-growing professional network not only helps job seekers build resumes, it also works with numerous tech companies such as Amazon Web Services, Google, MediaTek and TSMC to help them recruit tech talent.
Clearly, a lot has happened since we last interviewed Trantor Liu, founder and CEO of CakeResume, five years ago. From his early startup days as a one man band to now leading a 30+ team that helps millions of users worldwide, Trantor has come a long way since he founded CakeResume. Naturally, we were curious to have a chat again with him to discuss how he steered his startup into a successful business and what ambitious plans he has for the future.
Taking on LinkedIn to build the largest tech talent pool in Asia
CakeResume has now surpassed 2.2 million users worldwide and is actively expanding into the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
In particular, Indonesia is a fast-growing market they are focusing heavily on. “Our strategy is that we provide lots of UI languages and we will look at the conversion rate from landing page to registered users. For Indonesia, we saw a high conversion rate of around 40%, so we saw an opportunity there and started investing in marketing and local influencer campaigns to build our online presence in the region. Now if you type in keywords such as 'CV maker' in Indonesia, we will appear in the top 3 search results.”
CakeResume has plans to build the largest tech talent pool in Asia / Photograph : CakeResume
Similar to the strategy of how they built up their talent pool in Taiwan, Trantor explains when it comes to international expansion, the first step remains the same which is to develop a big database of potential candidates. “We will continue to invest and build up our talent pool in Indonesia because once you achieve enough users, businesses will come to you asking for help to recruit talent.”
What is his end goal for expanding into APAC? “After a successful seed round from Mynavi, we are even more ambitious now to take on a bigger share of the market. We want to be the Asian equivalent of LinkedIn and become the largest social network for professionals in the APAC region.”
Trantor says although CakeResume shares many similarities with LinkedIn, one key differentiation that sets them apart is how they build resumes for job seekers. “Our competitive advantage is that our platform designs and personalizes resumes that can best showcase the skills and experiences of job seekers in the digital world.”
CakeResume works with thousands of high-profile companies to help them with tech recruitment / Photograph : CakeResume
Accelerating growth with new partnerships and product features
CakeResume is rapidly growing its partnerships with big tech companies such as Google and TSMC, where effective tech recruitment is instrumental to business success. “When you look at the job listings from TSMC, you’d see that all the jobs are tech-related. Finding the right tech talent is not easy, so it’s a testament to us that companies of all sizes are coming to us to access our talent pool of tech specialists.”
Trantor says they attract a lot of tech workers and software specialists because the way they design resumes breaks the rules of traditional resumes. “Our resumes are built in a multimedia format and job seekers can be very creative in terms of how they showcase and demonstrate their strengths. So our platform attracted tech talents right from the beginning because we know how to help them show themselves in the best light.”
CakeResume helps job seekers build customized resumes / Photograph : CakeResume
To support its growth, CakeResume continues to innovate its platform with new features such as the ability to set up a public profile, a chat function for employers to reach out directly to candidates, and a Grammarly-like feature to help proofread resumes.
Another feature to highlight is the ‘Portfolio’ section where anyone can upload articles, photos and various other projects they’ve accomplished. “We have a strong tech talent pool but we also want to expand and build our presence across all industries. By introducing ‘Portfolio’, we want to encourage everyone to showcase their work and talent; for example, if you’re in the retail/hospitality industry, you can create an album of all the dishes you’ve made,” says Trantor.
Trantor Liu discusses how he built CakeResume from the ground up and his ambitions for the future / Photograph: 蔡仁譯攝
From humble beginnings to a successful startup
Speaking about his entrepreneurial journey, Trantor said he has always been ambitious and always wanted to build great products that can impact millions. At the beginning it was hard when it was just himself trying to build something from the ground up but he said that was all part of the learning process because it meant he could learn everything from business development to marketing.
So now when it comes to managing his team he says he knows how to support each department and give them the resources they need. “I come from a software background but from the beginning I knew as a startup founder, I can’t just focus on deep tech; I need to know everything across the business so I know how to build my brand as well as developing great products.”
He still remembers the humble beginnings of his bootstrapped startup where his initial capital came from his own personal savings. He worked 18-hour days and to save time and money he even took care of all his meals at convenience stores every day for at least 6 months.
“Looking back on my journey, I feel very lucky that everything just came together for me. For example, our seed round investment happened just when we needed it — I feel like sometimes it comes down to luck for things to fall into place at the right time. So to be able to grow to where we are now, I am very grateful.”
〔Original :Meet Global〕
https://meet-global.bnext.com.tw/articles/view/47649