all right fantastic to have you both here and congratulations people's choice winners from december twenty twenty five all that time ago last year you got the vote to be the people's choice in london how do you feel what was it like It feels awesome. Honestly, it was really great just getting to share our product with the world. So both other founders and getting their opinions on ResLink as well as just other investors as well. Just as a bit of context, ResLink is essentially like a video resume platform that allows job seekers to put a video on their CV so that they can connect with hiring teams more easily, especially in you know, how much of a crowded market this current job market is. And I think a lot of people definitely resonated with that pain. I mean, even after we did the demo, we had a bunch of people that came up to us and said, yeah, I mean, I really wish I had this when I was applying for jobs. So I think getting that sort of validation from people that kind of just saw the value of the product was great. but then also getting the question from investors just to kind of pushing us to think big about what this product can really be and like what we can do with the company, I think was something that was super exciting. So the crowd was great and the validation was even better. And this has been quite an arc for us, right? We have Elizabeth Shaw to thank for our introduction originally in Lisbon at her panel. Then you guys came along to the demo night that evening in Lisbon and now you're in London and you've done the demo night. Joanna, what do you think of the Canopy Community stuff so far and what are you getting out of it? I think it's amazing. I mean, it was great to meet you guys in Lisbon and see all of the people doing the demo. I think it definitely gave us a perspective on how it is that we should be doing. I think the night after that, we already changed our decks. No way. Talk to a lot of people there as well, like from investors to other founders as well, like to get other points of view into the market right now. So after that, like it was really, really helpful for us. And then it put us in a really good position when we went to London because we knew what to expect already. We knew how to position ourselves. So, yeah, I think it was just great. And the community is great because it's very supportive. And obviously, Joanna, you come from the second greatest country in the world, right? You're obviously not from Portugal, but it's a close second. Yes, I would say it's the first, but okay. Absolutely. Very good. Very good. So what's the plans for you next? How are you taking this idea forward? Yeah, so our big plans at the moment is scaling ResLink. So essentially what we did in twenty twenty five is that we launched our soft launcher MVP where we managed to get a lot of traction from it. And we actually promoted ResLink with our community tech talk. And that's where we realized that there's quite a lot of traction. And twenty twenty six, essentially the main aim is just continuing to scale that to a couple hundred thousand users. So that's our main aim is just scaling to as many users as possible to get as many job seekers landing more roles through the things of video resumes. Well, and congrats on the success with Tech Talk as well. I mean, what's your community size sitting out at the moment? Because I think it was something crazy like four hundred K when we met last time. Yeah, right now we have over four hundred thousand members in our network. So our community is growing quite a lot. And it has been what's been fueling ResLink completely organically, which is amazing because we also help job seekers. And on top of that, we saw all of the pain they were going through. And that's why we decided to create ResLink to start with. So Tech Talk and ResLink, they work very hand on hand, which is really, really good. And we can see the validation on both sides on how we're being able to help on Tech Talk, but also through ResLink. And yeah, that just enabled us to grow ResLink very, very quickly without spending much money, which is always great at the start. I mean, look, we're really happy at Canopy that we've got nearly seven hundred founders in programs at the moment, but four hundred thousand would be crazy to me. How on earth did you manage to pull this together? Because it's a relatively short time frame, right? This is two or three years you've managed to pull this number together. So how do you do that, Roxanne? The power of social media. And so that's basically how we grew. Most of our following is through Instagram to start with. So we started twenty twenty four with around five thousand followers. And right now we're just under three hundred and thirty thousand followers on Instagram. But then with that, we also decided to grow TikTok. We decided to grow our LinkedIn as well. And we also have a subscriber newsletter of about forty thousand people there. So the power of social media is essentially the main way that we're able to grow so quickly. And Joanna, what sort of things are you posting on Instagram and TikTok that's giving you this kind of virality and this kind of growth? A lot of educational content. So I think the reason why people like us so much is because we're very direct. So we basically tell people what is it that they need to do, what is it that they need to fix, and trying to help them as much as possible and reach as many people as possible. So I think from there, people saw how actionable we were. So we just started giving a lot of tips on what are the things you're doing wrong, what are the things that you need to improve, especially in this market now because things are changing very quickly. So also showing it from our perspective as people that apply for jobs, but also people that hire, I think is very valuable because people don't know and they're feeling blindsided on what's happening right now. And the job market is just very chaotic and people don't understand why. So I think we're explaining to them why is the way it is and what you need to do to help fix that essentially. Okay, amazing. Amazing. I think I've got a lot to learn from you both. So I look forward to chatting to you again soon. And before we go today, you know, you've just become a People's Choice winner. And every month, we've got startups in different parts of the world trying to do the same. So what's your best advice for a founder who's looking maybe at their first demo night next week? How do they become as successful as you both in the evening and become the People's Choice winner? Yeah, I think exposure. So similar to what we did, basically going to see other demos and hearing how other people is pitching is something that really helps because it kind of just makes you think about how you should be pitching and what are some of the elements that you see people do well and put it in your own pitch. So I think just trying to go and see as many pitches as possible, especially in the similar space that you are, is super helpful that I would say to put a deck together and try to get opinions from other people as well, because I think especially as a founder, because you're spending so much time on your product and the problem you're solving to you, it's very, very clear, but it might be. who you just pitched the idea to for five seconds. So I think trying to get other, like a third perspective on the deck and just how you talk about the problem and your product is something that's really useful. And then because we were two people pitching, definitely practicing. So we spent quite a bit of time kind of just practicing our pitch, making sure that it sounds good, that it was within the timeframe and that it just sounded very convincing. So exposure, getting third opinion, and then just making sure you come prepared. Well, I think this double act you've got is a bit of the secret sauce as well, right? Because you're very warm and approachable and charismatic people, but together you kind of double it up, don't you? And it's like one plus one is equal to seven, not just like one plus one is equal to two. So how do you do that? What's the secret of this relationship that you have together? I don't think there's much of a secret. I think it is because we I think that's I always tell that to rocks like this is the hardest decision you ever going to make if you open a business is who you go into business with. And we see like a lot of businesses failing because the founders don't get along. And I think Like from early on, we started as friends. So I don't know, like eight, nine years ago. And then from there, we kind of saw that we had a similar way of communicating and approaching and seeing things. But we have very different perspectives because we build our careers very differently. So I have more of like a marketing mindset and sales mindset and Rox is much more operational and strategy. So that kind of married very well on how we do things. And I think from there, it's just like communication. Like if you don't have communication, then like everything goes terribly and i think that's with any type of relationship so i always tell her that we're in a sort of a marriage um with tech talk and wrestling and yeah to make it work we just need to to communicate very well I think that's huge advice. Thank you so much for that. All right. And good luck to you with everything that you're doing. I look forward to chatting with you more as a People's Choice winner. Afraid you're going to hear a lot from me and Pedro Guimaraes because we really want to help you with your success and we want to watch some of it, but enable some of it and do what's needed for you. So, you know, keep telling us what you need help with. and we'll do our very best to support you with any resource we have within the community you're a special part of the community now you're kind of the ones we look to for leadership for guidance and for signals like you showing us what's what's needed today is different to what was needed yesterday and then we build things out to help you and then help others that are like you and because you've shown us what's needed but thank you so much and congratulations you know i salute you it's always wonderful to meet another people's choice winner thank you so much
