There are plenty of resume builders available online, but only a few of them are user-friendly and really simple to use. That was one of the reasons why Tomas Ondrejka and his friends launched a super-cool Slovak based start-up – KICKRESUME. “People still don’t know how to write a quality resume, and Kickresume is trying to help them. Besides, I think our original and functional designs of resume templates were what helped us stand out from the rest of the resume builders”, shares Tomas in our newest interview.
Mladiinfo: How did you bring Kickresume to life?
Tomas: We put Kickresume together with Peter Ďuriš back at university when we both needed to write a resume for an internship, so we created a very simple tool for us and our friends. In a few months, though, we found Kickresume used by a couple of thousand people! Our website was taken by storm and our servers suddenly couldn’t bear it. That’s when we decided to move Kickresume to another level – we enrolled to the “Spot Booster” accelerator and here we are today with paying customers from all over the world.
Mladiinfo: What was the most valuable lesson you learnt when founding a startup – what was the toughest thing you overcome to make something bigger out of Kickresume?
Tomas: We learned to solve problems on the spot and we keep a motto that nothing is impossible if one wants to achieve something. We had to face loads of problems at the beginning but we never quite expected it to be all bliss and heaven. I think the toughest thing for us was to agree on the right pricing. This was where our mentors proved most valuable. They gave us some priceless advice, however, they didn’t know the product as much as we did, so we had to learn to think for ourselves and make even risky decisions to get somewhere.
Mladiinfo: How do you help young job seekers? And does Kickresume pay your bills?
Tomas: Many clever and smart youngsters with quality education have problems with writing a good resume that would “sell them”. Also, some of them don’t even know how a good resume should look like because that’s the kind of thing they don’t teach your at school. We created Kickresume to help them with this hassle. We also started a blog where they can find a plenty of useful information about resume and cover letter writing, resume tips and tricks, and the like. At the moment, we’re launching our project to cooperate directly with schools and universities. We’d like to teach the students how to write a quality resume.
Kickresume started off as a free app that was first financed from our own resources and later on from the investment we got from Spot Booster. Since we found the right pricing, we’re slowly getting to achieve a break-even. If all goes well, we’ll be opening the Champagne by the end of April. At the moment, Kickresume employs seven best people in the world. We’re always trying to find new interesting people with whom the whole team can have some mutual learning.
Tomas Ondrejka
Mladiinfo: Are there any new ideas in your mind to polish up Kickresume and improve your customers’ experience?
Tomas: We have quite a lot of new ideas! We’re always trying to find out what our users want. We launched a cover letter builder, grammar and spelling checker or a customizing feature for our resume designs. We’re thinking about offering our customers the possibility to create their personal website generated straight from the resume data. We’re preparing a database of most frequently used phrases on resumes that would speed up the whole process of resume creation. At the moment, we have 17,000 phrases. Also, we look forward to cooperating with universities and students, who we want to teach how to create a quality resume. We’re currently testing this model on some of the unis in the US and we soon want to involve some Slovakian universities as well.
So much so, we’ve also got all the resume data secured by latest security tools. Of course, we never provide the users’ data to any third party. Since we deal with delicate information, security is key for us. We don’t want to become a second LinkedIn where you get messages with job offers an hour after registration.
Kickresume team @ work
Mladiinfo: What are the most important moments that elevated Kickresume to what it is today?
Tomas: Our full focus on the product was key. A year ago we said to ourselves: Screw all the startup conferences, let’s just work hard on our product. Of course, I don’t mean to say this kind of events is useless, they can be beneficial and you can meet plenty of interesting people. But concentrating on your product should be your priority. Also, I can’t be forgetting our amazing team that’s behind Kickresume’s success. So, to date, we’ve had more than 400,000 resumes downloads and our users come from all over the world. Most come from US, India, Indonesia, Canada and Australia. We’re very happy to be getting emails from people telling us they got hired thanks to Kickresume. Also, I can’t be forgetting that all this amazing job is fueled by the outstanding team behind Kickresume.
Mladiinfo: Finally, where do you see yourselves, and your initiative moving in the forthcoming period? And, what would be one last advice you would give to those who have an idea in their mind, but lack the courage or resources to make it real?
Tomas: We are still working on new features, so it’s never ending story but we love our job. We launched a new program for students and teachers so they can use Kickresume totally for free. The main idea is to teach students how to create perfect resume. If you would like to join, just use promo code ”ifeellucky” at check out.
About one last advice… I’d say don’t be afraid to start. You’ll learn plenty of new things – things they don’t teach you at school. There’s nothing to lose. If you fail on your first try, take it as a lesson learned and try again. The experience that you gain is often more valuable than money made.
Article by: Stefan Alijevikj
Edited by: Ivana Petriskova