Roxanne Taku & Joana Rocha: Tech Talk, ResLink & the CV Rebuild

Roxanne Taku and Joana Rocha became co-founders before either of them knew the word for it. They met in a Mandarin class at university in London, moved to China together, and have been building things side by side ever since — first an air-purifying business with a college friend, and now two companies changing how people find jobs in tech.

What Tech Talk and ResLink Actually Do

Tech Talk started as a career community helping people land jobs in the tech industry. Along the way, Roxanne and Joana noticed the traditional CV wasn't working the way it used to. "The power of the CV isn't as powerful as it used to be a couple of years ago," Roxanne says. So they built ResLink, a video CV platform for UK job seekers: keep the CV, add a video, share it as one link. Recruiters see a real person, not just a bullet-pointed history — a bet backed by a wider shift in hiring, where 67% of hiring managers now say video resumes help them assess candidates more effectively than text alone.

The Numbers Behind the Community

Tech Talk began as a side project alongside full-time jobs. Two and a half years on, it has grown to more than 400,000 followers, with over 7,000 people inside a gated community space — and Roxanne and Joana only went full-time on both companies in the past year. "We've been growing a lot very quickly, which is great," Joana says, "but it comes with its challenges as well."

Ten Years of Firsts

The founder story goes back further than either business. Roxanne and Joana met at university in London roughly a decade ago — Joana originally from Brazil — and bonded in a Mandarin class before living in China together. They navigated their twenties largely side by side, and even ran an air-purifying business together with a third friend before Tech Talk or ResLink existed.

"The fact that we've known each other for so long means we know each other as people," Roxanne says. "It would probably take a little bit longer to understand each other if we didn't have that history, and the working relationship wouldn't have been as fruitful as it is now."

Their skills split cleanly: Joana is the marketing strategist and operator; Roxanne is the long-term thinker handling sales, partnerships, and client relationships. "I'm more like the big vision, long-term thinker," Roxanne says. "Joana is more like, okay, now let's take that vision and figure out what we need to do this week, this month, this quarter to make it happen."

"Everything you build, you're building to solve a problem for someone. If you don't really understand your customer, it's going to be really hard for you to build something on your own assumptions." — Joana Rocha

What Canopy Added

Roxanne and Joana met Stewart at Web Summit, joined a Canopy Community demo night, and later pitched ResLink at a London event — winning the audience's People's Choice award. "Getting those types of questions from the judges and the crowd — they looked at it from an angle we just never really thought of," Roxanne says. Joana adds that the room itself mattered: fellow founders pitching alongside them included one who has since been named to a Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

Advice for First-Time Founders

• Talk to your customers before they're customers — don't build on assumptions.
• Pick a co-founder for complementary skills, not matching ones.
• Choose people you trust before people who are impressive.
• Build systems, not motivation — motivation comes and goes; systems keep you executing.

Why This Story Matters

For early-stage investors, Tech Talk and ResLink are a reminder that traction doesn't always arrive through a fundraise — sometimes it's built for free, over years, inside a community. For first-time founders, this is proof that the strongest co-founder relationships are often built long before the business idea shows up.

Want more stories like this? Head to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/@canopycommunity617 to watch the full conversation.

Canopy Community is a global entrepreneurship platform supporting first-time founders through virtual incubation, investor circles, and Demo Nights across the UK, Portugal, India, and Turkey. We believe entrepreneurship is a route to social mobility — and that there are many origin stories behind the founders building tomorrow's companies. Learn more at canopy.community.

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