Talential
Private · Friends Circle · April 2026

Hiring is frozen.
We're the thaw.

A private invitation — before we open to the world. We're building the local talent network. And we want you in early.

01 — The Opportunity

Get in early.
Get in at a discount.

Before we close our main round, we're reserving a slice for people we trust.

$5K
Minimum ticket
$50K
Total reserved
for this circle
−25%
Valuation discount vs. largest ticket in main round

This is not a pitch deck you found online. This is us, reaching out to the people who've watched this be built — and giving you the chance to be part of what comes next. The discount is real. The window is limited.

02 — Problem / Solution

Four acts.
One broken system.

This is the story of hiring — and why it's never worked.

01
Hiring never worked

The resume is a self-written list of claims. Every real observation a recruiter ever made about someone — it stayed with them. Never passed on. The next employer started from zero. This has happened a billion times. Nobody built anything to stop it.

02
AI made it worse

Job description: written by AI. Resume: written by AI. Matching: done by AI. A machine talks to a machine. The actual human — trying to find work, trying to build a team — is invisible. Hiring is not broken. It is frozen.

03
Locally, you're on your own

You need someone reliable. This weekend. 3km away. Saturday morning. Your options: a job board (6–8 weeks), a recruiter (2 months' salary), or Facebook. The local talent market is not just broken. It doesn't exist.

04
Never built for the talent

Every hiring tool was built by large companies, for large companies. LinkedIn serves white-collar professionals. Hundreds of millions of workers who keep restaurants running, events happening, cities moving — they have nothing. The talent applies. Waits. Hears nothing. Starts over.

A local talent network.
Built around the talent.

Direct connection — no middleman, no recruiter, no job board, no AI writing both sides of the same conversation.

Hyper-local, real-time — like Google Maps for talent. The people near you, available now, visible for the first time.

Peer-to-peer validation — not what talent claims about themselves. What the community says about them. Real observations, from real businesses.

Potential over Credential

"Talential connects businesses directly with nearby people based on peer-validated strengths — not AI-written resumes."

03 — Where We Are

On the ground.
In motion.

We're not pitching a concept. We're already working.

Round structure
$400K total
Two tranches — currently in negotiation with VCs and Angels
VC & Angel investors
$350K
Several investors currently negotiating terms
In negotiation
Friends circle — you
$50K
$5K minimum · 25% valuation discount · 10 slots
Open now
10+
Businesses in Saigon
already working with us
→ 20 by end of April · 50 by end of May
5
Universities in active
discussion
On-campus activation in Saigon
MVP
Product is ready
Design complete · Testing live
The Team
Gwen
Gwen
CEO
LinkedIn ↗
Andrew
Andrew
CTO · AI Researcher
LinkedIn ↗
Nath
Nath
COO
LinkedIn ↗
Rebecca
Rebecca
CFO
LinkedIn ↗
Quynh
Quynh
Operations
LinkedIn ↗
Uyen
Uyen
Product Design
Phuc
Phuc
B2C & University
LinkedIn ↗
Alex
Alex
B2B Activation
LinkedIn ↗
04 — The Product

MVP is ready.
See it yourself.

Not a mockup. Not a concept. A product that businesses in Saigon are already using.

Product Design
View preliminary design on Figma
Investor Deck
Full presentation — strategy, financials, roadmap
Company Filing
Incorporated in Singapore · ACRA registration document
05 — How We Make Money

Simple pricing.
Massive market.

The model is built for SMEs — the most underserved segment in hiring. Most don't even have an HR department.

Today — Job Board
You do all the work

Post a listing. Collect resumes. Screen manually. Interview. Repeat. Weeks of work. No guarantee of quality.

Unpaid labour
Today — Agency
You pay someone else

Hand it off to a recruiter. Wait 2 months. Pay up to 2 months' salary as commission. No refund if it doesn't work out.

2× salary fee
Talential
Pre-evaluated. Pre-screened. Ready to meet.

For $8, a business gets a candidate already validated by other businesses — through real interviews, real probations, real behavioral tags. We cut sourcing time by 80%. No agency. No noise.

$8 per job description
Revenue Phases
Phase 1 — Now
Per-job pricing

$8 per job description. SMEs pay for speed and quality. No subscription needed to get started.

Phase 2 — After MVP
Monthly subscription

Once we have enough behavioral data, we expand beyond sourcing into onboarding and training — and move to recurring revenue.

2,000
Active F&B job ads in Saigon right now
$15K
Monthly opportunity — Saigon F&B alone
$250K
Monthly revenue target — within 12 months
80%
Reduction in sourcing time for businesses
06 — The Bigger Picture

A new category.
Not a better job board.

Airbnb didn't fix hotels. They built something else entirely. Nobody thought it should exist — until it did, and then it was obvious.

Airbnb didn't fix
Hotels
→
They built
A new category
Talential doesn't fix
Recruitment
→
We're building
The alternative

Direct. Local. Peer-validated. No machinery in the way. It sounds like it shouldn't exist yet. That's exactly where the opportunity is.

"The talent who's proven themselves across five real placements has more credible signal than any CV could ever produce."